BV 4501
.H23
1905
Hall, A.
C. A
. 1847-
-1930.
The relations
of faith
and
life
THE RELATIONS OF FAITH AND LIFE
THE BEDELL LECTURES
1905
By the same Author
Christ's Temptation and Ours. The Baldwin Lectures,
1896.
The Use of Holy Scripture in the Worship of the
Church. The Paddock Lectures, 1903.
The Christian Doctrine of Prayer. The Bohlen Lec-
tures, 1904.
Confirmation. In the Oxford Library of Practical Theology.
The Virgin Mother. Addresses on the Life of the Blessed
Virgin Mary as told in the Gospels. With an Appended
Essay on the Virgin Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Church's Discipline Concerning Marriage and
Divorce. A charge. 1896.
Marriage with Relatives. A charge. 1901.
Ecclesiastical Discipline. A charge. 1904.
THE
RELATIONS OF FAITH
AND LIFE
THE BEDELL LECTURES
1905
BY
THE RT. REV. A. C. a} HALL, D.D , LL.D.
BISHOP OF VERMONT
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1905
Copyright, 1905
By Longmans, Green, and Co.
FROM THE COMMUNICATION OF THE
FOUNDERS OF THE BEDELL
LECTURESHIP
June 20, 1880.
Gentlemen: We have consecrated and set apart for
the service of God the sum of five thousand dollars, to be
devoted to the establishment of a lecture or lectures in the
Institutions at Gambler on the Evidences of Natural and
Revealed Religion, or the Relations of Science and Re-
ligion.
We ask permission of the Trustees to establish the lec-
ture immediately, with the following provisions.
The lecture or lectures shall be delivered biennially on
Founders' Day (if such a day shall be established) or other
appropriate time. During our lifetime, or the lifetime of
either of us, the nomination of the lectureship shall rest
with us.
The interest for two years on the fund, less the sum
necessary to pay for the publication, shall be paid to the
Lecturer.
The Lecturer shall also have one-half of the net profits
of the publication during the first two years after the date
of publication. All other profits shall be the profits of the
Board, and shall be added to the capital of the lecture-
ship.
We express our preference that the lecture or lectures
shall be delivered in the Church of the Holy Spirit, if such
building be in existence; and shall be delivered in the
presence of all the members of the Institutions under the
authority of the Board.
vi BEDELL LECTURESHIP
We ask that the day on which the lecture, or the first of
each series of lectures, shall be delivered shall be a holiday.
We wish that the nomination to this lectureship shall be
restricted by no other consideration than the ability of the
appointee to discharge the duty to the highest glory of God
in the completest presentation of the subject.
We desire that the lecture shall be published in uniform
shape and that a copy of each shall be placed in the
libraries of Bexley Hall, Kenyon College, and of the
Philomathean and Nu Kappa Pi Society.
Asking the favorable consideration of the Trustees,
We remain, with respect,
G. T. Bedell,
Julia Bedell.
To the Trustees of the Theological Seminary of the
Diocese oj Ohio and Kenyon College.
LIST OF PREVIOUS LECTURES ON THE BEDELL
FOUNDATION
1881. The World's Witness to Christ, by the Rt.
Rev. John Williams, D.D., Bishop of Connecticut.
1883. Revealed Religion in Relation to the
Moral Being of God, by the Rt. Rev. Henry Cotterill,
D.D., Bishop of Edinburgh.
1885. The World and the Logos, by the Rt. Rev.
Hugh Miller Thompson, D.D., Bishop of Mississippi.
1887. The Religious Aspect of Evolution, by the
Rev. James McCosh, D.D., President of Princeton College.
1889. The Historical Christ the Moral Power of
History, by the Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., Rector of
St. Bartholomew's Church, New York.
1891. Holy Writ and Modern Thought, by the Rt.
Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, D.D., Bishop of Western
New York.
1893. The Witness of the American Church to
Pure Christianity, by the Rt. Rev. William A. Leonard,
D.D., Bishop of Ohio.
1895. The Reasonableness of Prayer, by the Rt.
Rev. Boyd Vincent, S.T.D., Bishop Coadjutor of Southern
Ohio.
1897. A National Church, by the Rev. W. R. Hunt-
ington, D.D., Rector of Grace Church, New York.
1899. Three Guardians of Supernatural Re-
ligion, by the Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D., Rector of Trinity
Church, New York.
1901. Man, Men, and their Master, by the Rt. Rev.
H. C. Potter, D.D., Bishop of New York.
1903. Evidence, Experience, Influence, by the Rt.
Rev. W. C. Doane, D.D., Bishop of Albany.
CONTENTS
LECTURE I.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE
PAGE
I. Knowledge, the recognition of facts, gives power 3
This is true in every department of life
The mistaking of fancies for facts must be
disastrous 5
Faith is, primarily, a kind of knowledge . . 5
A knowledge of spiritual truths
based on revelation
It gives moral power 6
This the constant representation of N. T.
writers
II. A priori consideration: The effect which the
great truths of the Christian faith must have . 7
belief in God 8
Christ 10
the Holy Spirit 15
HI. A posteriori consideration: The result of the
Christian faith in the world 17
IV. Objections urged and answered
1. On behalf of non-Christian religions . . 19
The moral failures of Hinduism . . 20
Buddhism . . 23
Confucianism . 29
Mohammedan-
ism ... 29
X CONTENTS
PAGE
IV. Objections urged and answered (Continued)
Their relation to the Truth .... 32
2. The comparative faihire of Christianity 34
How this is to be accounted for
3. May not morals be taught without Chris-
tian doctrine ? 35
Necessary and actual failure of such
attempts 37
The need of religious standards and
sanctions 42
V. Consequent duties to our faith 43
1. To think about it
2. To act upon it
3. To spread it
LECTURE II.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH
I. Faith in the N. T. not merely intellectual ... 49
Intellectual recognition must precede moral
self -surrender 51
And presupposes moral faithfulness ... 51
II. 1. Moral qualities required in the quest of any
truth 52
2. Additional necessity for the recognition of re-
ligious truth, because of the demands it
makes on conduct 53
3. A moral and spiritual affinity required,
especially for knowledge of a person . . 59
4. Spiritual powers of perception must be culti-
vated 62
CONTENTS xi
PAGfi
III. Thus is explained the importance attributed to
faith in the N. T 66
It is a test of character. Every coming of
Christ involves a y-ijifn^
This specially emphasized in St. John's
writings 68
Historically illustrated in the Synoptic Gos-
pels and the Acts 72
IV. Three practical hints:
1. The loss of faith may be due to a lower-
ing of life 73
2. In seasons of doubt care must be taken
to remove moral obstacles to faith. . 75
3. In w^inning others to the faith, we must
be constructive, helping them to be
true to all they know 76
NOTES.
A. Intimate connexion between Faith and Morals in Chris-
tianity, p. 81.
B. Obstacles to commercial development in India, p. 83.
C. Use of -tarebr^ in N.T., p. 84.
D. Use of -i(TTt^ and "^ ruffzi--, p. 86.
E. J. S. Mill on Moral Sources of Erroneous Opinion, p.
87.
F. Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel, p. 88.
G. Lecky on Intuitive Moral Perceptions, p. 89.
I
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE
LECTURE I
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE
These lectures, which it is my privilege this year
to deliver, are intended by the direction of the
founders to deal with the Evidences of Natural
and Revealed Religion. The special subject which
I propose to treat, "The Relations of Faith and
Life," will, I trust, be regarded as fairly coming
under this head. Christianity gives evidence of its
truth in the life which it produces. This will largely
be the subject of our first lecture, concerning " The
effect of Faith on Life"; while the second, "The
effect of Life on Faith," will be concerned with the
moral preparation which is necessary for the appre-
ciation of any evidences adduced in support of a
revelation.
We have a common saying, the truth of which is
generally recognized, "Knowledge is power." This
is true in every department of life. Take a few
instances. The farmer must know the properties of
the soil he would cultivate, and something of the
laws of chemistry and of vegetable life, in order to
3
4 FAITH AND LIFE
gain plentiful crops. The higher mechanic requires
some knowledge of geometry and hydraulics and
electricity. This knowledge enables him to throw
a bridge across the chasm, or to encircle the worid
with means of almost instantaneous communica-
tion. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is helpless-
ness. In order to heal or mend the ills of the
human body the physician or surgeon must have
gained a knowledge of anatomy, and of the power
and working of drugs. Call to mind for a moment
the advance in the possibilities of surgery in our
own day due to the discoveries of Pasteur and of
Lister with regard to germs of disease and to anti-
septic treatment. Are we not even now anxiously
looking for possible power against that dread dis-
ease of cancer by means of a further knowledge of
the properties of radium and kindred substances,
or through hitherto unknown uses of electricity?
A merchant's success is largely based on his knowl-
edge of values, immediate and prospective, of
sources of supply and opportunities for sale. Early
information, I take it, is essential on exchange.
For navigation a knowledge of currents, shoals, and
winds is indispensable. The lore of chart and
compass gives power to the seaman to direct his
cruise aright over the trackless ocean. The pleader
in court or forum must not only be acquainted with
the facts he marshals; his power largely depends
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 6
on his knowledge (instinctive it may be) of motives
which are at work in those whom he addresses, and
of the means by which these may be appealed to.
You will not fail to note that in any or all of these
departments erroneous information, the mistaking
of fancies for facts, must be disastrous. Action
based upon theories which are found not to corres-
pond with facts cannot but have injurious effects;
and this result is not generally mitigated by the
good faith, as we call it, of a person's mistake.
You will not less surely risk your money if you in-
vest it in some unsound scheme, because you were
fully persuaded that the speculation would prove
enormously advantageous.
We recognize then that knowledge, the recogni-
tion of facts, gives power. Now Faith is a kind of
knowledge. Of the other elements contained in
faith more will be said in the next lecture; but
whatever else is involved in the idea of faith, all is
certainly based on belief. Faith is the recognition
of spiritual truths; concerning God, His being and
character; concerning man, his origin and destiny,
the true standard of his life, his means of approach-
ing his Maker. It is a knowledge of spiritual facts,
which could not be discovered with certainty by
man's unaided reason. It is based on a revelation
from God, on His unfolding of great unseen reali-
6 FAITH AND LIFE
ties. God's revelation is given (1) by Divine
prompting in our own heart and conscience, (2)
through those whom He raises up for the purpose
of receiving and conveying to others intimations of
His mind and will, and (3) chiefly through or in His
incarnate Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. But, while
based on revelation, faith — like (mark you) all true
knowledge — is appropriated and certified by ex-
perience, the experience of spiritual life.
Faith then is a kind of knowledge, and this knowl-
edge gives power, moral power. It furnishes mo-
tives, sanctions, restraints for conduct. This is the
light in which faith is persistently treated by writers
of the New Testament Scriptures. "This is the
victory," St. John declares, "which overcame the
world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh
the world save he that believeth that Jesus is the
Son of God?"^ In St. Paul's description of the
spiritual armour in which the Christian must array
himself, faith is represented by a shield wherewith
fiery darts of temptation are repelled.^ Using an-
other figure, St. Jude speaks of our most holy faith
^ 1 John V. 4, 5.
^ Eph. vi. 16. It matters little whether here or in several other
passages faith is to be understood of that which is believed, the
substance of the Christian revelation, our creed, or of our belief
therein. Most frequently v rriaTic stands for the faith, the truth
made known to and accepted by the Christian Church. See Note
D. p. 86.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 7
as the foundation on which the superstructure of a
good and virtuous Hfe is to be built up.^ St. Peter
bids Christians resist, or stand up to, their spiritual
foe ''steadfast in the faith," which may mean
strengthened by their faith. ^ St. James speaks of
the implanted word of truth, when received with
meekness, being able to save the soul, our life being
illuminated and ordered according to God*s will.^
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, I need
not remind you, developes at length the power of
faith, its effect on life. By faith, realizing things
hoped for and making venture of things not seen,
God's servants of old spurned the allurements and
braved the losses and reproaches of the world.
They endured as beholding Him who to the eye of
sense is invisible.^
Must not this be so? Take the great truths of
the Christian faith, those which are marked off in
the Church Catechism (following the Baptismal
commission^) as "chief" even among the articles of
^ Jude 20.
^ 1 Peter v. 9. ^ avriaTTfre crepeol ry nioTei.
»Heb. xi.
^ James i. 18,21.
* Matt, xxviii. 19. On this passage and its authority see Dr.
Sanday's article, "God," in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible^
vol. ii, pp. 213, 214, and an article in The Journal of Theological
Studies for Sept., 1905, "The Lord's command to baptize," by
Dr. Chase (now Bishop of Ely), who concludes an exhaustive
8 FAITH AND LIFE
the Apostles' Creed — not as excluding, but because
rightly understood they implicitly include, the rest.
We " chiefly learn to believe " in God, in Christ His
incarnate Son, and in the Holy Spirit of God.
1. What do we mean by the first article of our
creed, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker
of heaven and earth " ? This certainly, and at any
rate: We acknov^^ledge one supreme being, a spir-
itual person, having powers of thought and affection
and freedom of action, such as we associate with
our minds and hearts and wills, of which our powers
of thought and feeling and choice are a reflection;
"the living God," who intervenes and rules and
judges in the affairs of men; a moral being, whose
action is characterized not merely by almighty
power but by infinite wisdom and perfect love.*
examination of the question by saying, "The whole evidence —
such I believe must be the verdict of scientific criticism — estab-
lishes without a shadow of doubt or uncertainty the genuineness
of Matt, xxviii. 19." (p. 499.)
* "The first great peculiarity of the theology of Moses was this,
that it taught that the Infinite and Supreme Being, who in most
religions was the hidden God, was to the Jews the revealed and
ever-present God, the object of worship, obedience, trust and
love." — James Freeman Clark, Ten Great Religions of the World,
vol. I, p. 414. Comp. vol. II, p. 104. "If the deity is a moral
being, and has a moral character, actually loving goodness and
alien from evil, then the foundation of duty is not in the arbitrary
will, but in the essential nature of God. Right is right, not be-
cause God commands it, but He commands it because it is right.
Goodness does not consist in obedience to the divine will, but in
cooformity to the divine charaxrter."
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 9
This is the first article of the Christian beHef. The
real acceptance of this truth must make a difference
in the view taken of the world and of life. How
different this conception from the heathen notion
of many rival deities, each with his or her own
limited sphere of influence, with antagonistic inter-
ests, with their favourite nations or individuals!^
How different again from the conception of some
modern thinkers of " the Eternal — not ourselves —
that makes for righteousness," ^ or from that which
identifies God with the living force which animates
all creation, denying to Him any separate personal
existence,^ or again from the DuaHsm of many
Eastern systems ! * It is the Christian belief ** in
One God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven
and earth, and of all things visible and invisible,"
* Compare e.q. the Scriptural accounts (there are probably two
woven together) of the Deluge with the Chaldee story. The poly-
theism of the older story, with its representation of the disaster as
due to the whimsical caprice of rival deities, is replaced by a repre-
sentation in Genesis of the Flood as a manifestation of the anger
of the holy Creator at the corruption of mankind. See Bishop H.
E. Ryle, The early narratives of Genesis, p. 115.
* Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible, p. 24.
^ See Archbishop Tait on "Modern Theism like the old Deism,
a setting up of what used to be called natural religion in the place
of revealed." The Church of the Ftdure, pp. 68, sq.
^Whatever doctrine of evil spirits, as of good, was taught in
Christianity, any dualistic idea was excluded by the first article of
the creed, belief in One supreme God, Creator, and Ruler of all
things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible.
10 FAITH AND LIFE
which assures us of the ultimate triumph of right,
which gives to us a real seose of responsibility to
the personal Source and Author of our being; it is
this belief which warrants prayer and makes it
reasonable/ which enables us to cast all our anxiety
upon Him, since we know He has a care for us;^
which gives us a confidence amid difficulties and
sorrows that nothing can happen without His per-
mission (however it may be at variance with His
original purpose), and that everything that He
allows He regulates, and will overrule for His ser-
vants' good and for the ultimate accomplishment of
His purposes.^ Such is the effect on life of the
first great truth of Christian faith.
2. We believe not only in God, but in Jesus
Christ, His incarnate Son. This belief — ^the historic
faith of the Christian Church, as expressed or
formulated in the Nicene Creed— marks a further
advance in moral power as in religious knowledge.
For in Christ we have a two-fold revelation, (1) of
* The author may venture to refer to his Bohlen Lectures on
The Christian Doctrine of Prayer, as guarding against common
misconceptions of the efficacy of prayer, as if it were in mechanical
fashion to bring about the accomplishment of our purposes, rather
than offered in perfect submission to God's wise and loving pur-
poses, for the accomplishment of His will.
2 1 Pet. V. 7.
^ For the persistent presentation of this truth in the account of
our Lord's Passion, see Matt. xxvi. 53, Luke xxii. 53, John xviii.
11, xix. 11, Acts ii. 23, iv. 28, Rom. viii. 28.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 11
what God is, and (2) of what man, made in God's
image, should be.
(1) No man hath seen God at any time. The
only begotten Son hath made Him known. ^ In
Christ the ^personal being of God is made plain ;^
and His moral character, loving and loveable, is
fully disclosed. By the incarnate Word, the di-
vine perfections are translated into language we
can understand, the language of human conduct.
"He that hath seen me," Christ declared, *'hath
[in this sense] seen the Father." ^ Thus we are
delivered from false conceptions of the supreme
being, as of a harsh and distant or unsympathetic
master. He is our "Father," to whom tvc are to
draw near with confidence, while with reverence,
not merely for His greatness but for His goodness.
What Jesus was, God is, in His absolute holiness,
in His hatred for sin and His pity for the sinner,
in His ready compassion for all human needs and
sorrows. What assurance the Incarnation gives of
God's intelligent sympathy in all our experiences
of joy and sorrow, from the cradle to the grave!
It is the incarnate Son of God, condescending to
our weakness, wrestling with our temptations, who
^ John i. 18; comp. 1 Tim. vi. 16.
^ See Liddon's Bampton Lectures, viii. pp. 452-458 (10th ed).
^ John xiv. 9; comp. 2 Cor. iv. 6. See St. Chrysostom, Homilies
on St. John, Ixxiv.
12 FAITH AND LIFE
calls forth the enthusiastic personal devotion that is
a distinct characteristic of the Christian religion.*
(2) And what Jesus was, man should be. Taking
man's nature in its integrity He shows our real dignity,
the true standard of our life. What ground we have
for respect for human nature in ourselves and in
others, when we see it thus hallowed by the Incarna-
tion and used by the incarnate Son, what a motive to
purify ourselves, in body, mind, and heart, even as
He is pure!^ By Christ's life, as in an object lesson,
we are taught in what man's worth consists, not in
rank or wealth or any external possession, but in
his own moral character; that he is great not in
proportion to what he can gather round himself,
but as he gives forth to others.^ In the Passion of
^ Compare Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. II, p. 9.
"The Platonist exhorted men to imitate God, the Stoic to follow
reason, the Christian to the love of Christ. ... It was reserved
for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which
through all the changes of eighteen centmdes has inspired the
hearts of men with an impassioned love, has shown itself capable
of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions, has
been not only the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest incen-
tive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it
may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of
active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than
all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of
moralists."
* 1 John iii. 3. ekeIvoc points to Christ as our illustrious Pat-
tern and Representative.
^Matt. XX. 25-28. The contrast between the fundamental
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 13
the incarnate Son we are taught that in a disordered
world (such as we see this to be) suffering and sor-
row are not of necessity marks of God's displeasure,
as most surely they do not betoken His indifference.
"Son though He was, yet learned He obedience by
the things which He suffered; and having been
made perfect He became unto all them that obey
Him the author of eternal salvation."^ In His Re-
surrection we have a pledge that death does not
end all; man's instinctive hope of survival is sanc-
tioned.^ Life, and that imperishable and incor-
ruptible, is brought to light by the gospel.^ "To
egoism of Paganism and the law of love and service in Christianity
is well drawn out in Schmidt's Social Results of Early Christianity
(translated by Thorpe).
^ Heb. V. 8, 9; comp. ii. 9, 10, xii. 2 sq.
^ "The period from b.c. 200 to a.d. 200, almost apart from the
Christian revejation, is instinct with the craving that men shall
surely live. It would seem as if the coming of Christ were the
crystallization of a large and uncertain hope that permeated the
lives of thinking Jew and Gentile alike, a hope that long before it
became, or was accepted as, an Epiphany was a living force in the
lives of men." — The Spectator, July 15, 1905, in an interesting
article on "The Apocrypha and Immortality." On the O. T.
hope of immortality and the Christian doctrine see Dr. Liddon's
sermon "Immortality" in his University Sermons, series I, and
the Appendix to Lecture V, in The Christian view of God and of
the World, by James Orr, where it is contended that the Hebrew
hope of future life was never limited to the immortality of the soul,
but involved a restoration of the whole personality, in which the
body too had a share.
^ 2 Tim. i. 10. See EUicott in loc. Pastoral Epistles, p. 116.
14 FAITH AND LIFE
death itself men are still subject, but Christ has
removed its terrors." ^ We are delivered from fear
of death, and begotten again to a living hope.^
We *'look for the resurrection of the dead, and the
life of the world to come." The Christian belief
not only in the immortality of the soul but in the
resurrection of the body, introduces surely a new
motive for purity and self-control, not merely that
the spirit may be preserved from pollution by yield-
ing to unlawful or excessive indulgence of bodily
appetites and passions, but that the body itself may
be kept in temperance, soberness, and chastity,
since it is not to be thrown away after a few years'
use, but is to be raised again, in however changed a
condition, to be the companion and instrument of the
perfected soul in the life of the world to come. This
expectation is, of course, connected with the belief in
the manifestation of God in the flesh, which left no
part of human nature in itself common or unclean.^
^ Westcott on Heb. ii. 15. Comp. Gore's Practical Exposition
of the Epistle to the Romans, vol. II, Note E, "Evolution and the
Christian Doctrine of the Fall," vi, concerning death as the pen-
alty for sin, p. 233.
^1 Pet. i. 3. "Christ's Resurrection reversed every doom of
every kind of death, and thus annulled the hopelessness which
must settle down on every one who thinks out seriously what is
involved in the universal empire of death. It was by the faith in
the Resurrection that mankind was enabled to renew its youth."
Hort in loc.
^ Concerning the terrible prevalence not only of prostitution,
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 15
3. We believe in the Holy Ghost; not only in
God above us, the infinite Creator, nor only in God
as man, acting out God's life and man's true life
before our eyes, but also in God within us, the in-
dwelling Spirit, sent from the Father by the incar-
nate Son to teach us His mind and Will, and to
enable us to correspond therewith; thus making us
one by one to share in that freedom from bondage
to sin and error which at the cost of His life and
death Christ bought for all men. Without this be-
lief we should indeed be powerless, daunted by the
high standard set before us, appalled by the con-
sciousness of our weakness in the face of countless
difficulties. By faith in the gift of the Spirit of
God, to lead us gradually into all truth, to stamp
His likeness upon us, to make us partakers of His
character, out of weakness we are made strong. It
is not only a law or a perfect example that we rec-
ognize in Jesus Christ, it is a power of holiness
that we receive from the Spirit which He breathes
upon us.^ The Christian belief strengthens the
but of unnatural crimes of uncleanness, at the height of Greek and
Roman civilization, and amongst the foremost representatives of
heathen culliire, see Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. II,
pp. 223-246, and 'il^-^ll. Comp. Liddon's Bampton Lectures,
iii, pp. 142, 143, with the confirmatory quotations from Renan.
For the like failure of other non-Christian religions to combat
sensuahty, see Christian Missions and Social Progress, by James
S. Dennis, Lectures 11 and III.
* 2 Pet. i. 4, Rom. viii. 11, 2 Cor. xiii. 5.
16 FAITH AND LIFE
moral sentiment by its insistence on a supreme
Ruler and Judge; it clears and elevates the moral
ideas by its manifestation of the ideal character in
the incarnate Son; by its recognition of the in-
dwelling Spirit, the life-giver, it gives impulse to the
moral power/ Thus the remaining articles of our
creed, in which the work of the Holy Spirit is traced
in detail, have all a moral force, and provide an
inspiration for life. The Holy Catholic Church is
the body which He inhabits, binding together in a
true fellowship — the Communion of Saints — all the
individual members of that collective society. It is
by His operation — the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Ghost — that we gain the re-
mission of sins.^ Thus we are prepared for a joyful
Resurrection of the body, and the Life of the world
to come, the full realization of the life eternal.
Must not this be so ? I asked ; must not faith
affect life ? And has it not been so ? Has not the
^On the unique "Power" of Christianity, see Illingworth,
Reason and Revelation, p. 153. " 'Power' is the word harped
upon throughout the New Testament and the Fathers; power to
translate ideals into action; and that not only in the hearts of the
refined few, but of the vulgar many; weak women, ignorant
children, uncultivated slaves; power to convert the grossest of
sinners into miracles of sanctity and martyrs for their faith. It
was this power which stirred society to its depths and revolution-
ized the world."
' Titus iii. 6.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 17
result and effect of the Christian faith been to pro-
duce a higher character, to give a new power to
human life? There can be no doubt as to the
verdict of history concerning the actual obligations
of civilization to Christianity. The life and stand-
ards of Christendom, however these may fall short
of the life and standards of Christ, are very different
from anything that was found before Christ, or
that is found to-day outside of Christian influence.
As a summary of the effects of the Christian faith
on the world I may quote the eloquent words of
Dr. Liddon in his Bampton Lectures, as appro-
priate to thoughts and aspirations in America in
1905, as to those which filled our minds when we
listened to the lectures at Oxford forty years ago.^
"Look at certain palpable effects of our Lord's
work which lie on the very face of human society.
If society, apart from the Church, is more kindly
and humane than in heathen times, this is due to
the work of Christ on the hearts of men. The era
of 'humanity' is the era of the Incarnation. The
sense of human brotherhood, the acknowledgment
of the sacredness of human rights, the recognition
of that particular stock of rights which appertains
to every human being, is a creation of Christian
dogma. It has radiated from the heart of the
Christian Church into the society of the outer
* Lect. iii, pp. 132, 133. See Note A, p. 81.
2
18 FAITH AND LIFE
world. Christianity is the power which first gradu-
ally softened slavery, and is now finally abolishing
it. Christianity has proclaimed the dignity of
poverty, and has insisted upon the claims of the
poor, with a success proportioned to the sincerity
which has welcomed her doctrines among the dif-
ferent peoples of Christendom. The hospital is an
invention of Christian philanthrophy ; the active
charity of the Church of the fourth century forced
into the Greek language a word for which Pagan-
ism had no occasion. The degradation of woman
in the Pagan world has been exchanged for a posi-
tion of special privilege and honour, accorded to her
by the Christian nations. The sensualism which
Pagans mistook for love has been placed under the
ban of all true Christian feeling; and in Christen-
dom, love is now the purest of moral influences; it
is the tenderest, the noblest, the most refined of the
movements of the soul. The old, the universal, the
natural feeling of bitter hostility between races,
nations, and classes of men is denounced by Chris-
tianity. The spread of Christian truth inevitably
breaks down the ferocities of national prejudice,
and prepares the world for that cosmopolitanism
which, we are told, is its most probable future.
International law had no real existence until the
nations taught by Christ had begun to feel the
bond of brotherhood. International law is now
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 19
each year becoming more and more powerful in
regulating the affairs of the civilized world."
We see the truth of Bishop Creighton's words,
"In all that is good in the world's energies we re-
cognize the fruits of the Incarnation, a new concep-
tion of humanity, and of its possibilities, — a new
conception once, which has now grown so old that
it is accepted as natural and universal, and its origin
is frequently forgotten."^ And again: "The work
of the early Church, in its relation to society, was to
build up again individual character, which had been
enfeebled by the decay of religious sanctions. It
was because Christianity made men, and strong
men, that it took its place in the system of the
world."^ "The test of religious systems," says the
same writer, "is their power of producing fruits in
individual character." ^
Here, in our day, we encounter a claim put forth
on behalf of other religions. True, it may be said,
that as a matter of fact Christianity has had a large
^ The Church and the Nation, p. 274.
2 Ihid. p. 141.
^ Ihid. p. 299. Compare Sir Monier Williams, BtuMhism,
p. 539. Any system " must prove its title to be called a religion by
its regenerating effect on man's nature; by its influence on his
thoughts, desires, passions, and feelings ; by its power of subduing
all his evil tendencies; by its ability to transform his character
and assimilate him to the God it reveals."
20 FAITH AND LIFE
share in the moulding of modern civilization, at any
rate in Europe; but may not this be due to its
special opportunity ? Might not other religions have
done as much, if circumstances had equally favored
them? Now, independently of the argument for
Christianity from the providential ordering of the
world, the answer we must make to such a plea is
this: other Eastern religions (with which alone we
are here concerned) have not shown any such re-
generating power as has been exerted by Chris-
tianity.
Certainly we would not ignore any element of
truth, any elevating influence, possessed by those
religions which are sometimes pressed upon us as
substitutes for Christianity, equally good and per-
haps better suited for other peoples and races, with
whose religion we are warned it would be better for
us not to interfere. Why, it is asked, should we
presume to impose upon other races our Christian
religion, when they already have systems such as
Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, or Moham-
medanism, which serve their purpose ? Let me say
a few words about the working and effect of each
of these systems as concrete instances of non-
Christian religions.
An apology or plea for Hinduism has lately been
put forth under the title of The Web of Indian Life^
in which an attractive picture of Indian domestic
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 21
life is drawn by the authoress, a convert from
Christianity, whose central theological position ap-
parently is "the entire sufficiency of any single
creed or conception to lead the soul to God as its
true goal." ^ A review of this book in The East
and the West ^ points to its politic suppression of the
authoress's glorification in other publications of
cults which in reality are at once simply polytheistic
and hideously impure. An extract is given from a
Hindu newspaper showing what reforming Hindus
think of this and of Mrs. Besant's somewhat similar
apology for actual Hinduism. "When an English
lady of decent culture professes to be an admirer of
Tantric mysticism and Krishna worship, it behoves
every well-wisher of the country to tell her plainly
that sensible men do not want her eloquence for
gilding what is rotten. In fact, abomination wor-
ship is the chief ingredient of modern Hinduism."^
Miss Noble's couleur de rose representation of Hindu
domestic life, and especially of the position of
women, is pronounced by those possessed of wide
experience and of balanced judgment, to be a sim-
* P. 178.
2 Jan. 1905, p. 111.
^ Krishna is the Hindu Apollo. Among the sacred books of the
Hindus, "the Tantras represent the perversion of the principle of
love to polluting and degrading practices disguised under the name
of rehgious rites." — Monier WilHams, Bvddhism, p. 2.
22 FAITH AND LIFE
pie romance/ In an extremely interesting paper
on "The Moral Tone of India,"' Dr. Lefroy,
Bishop of Lahore, formerly head of the Cambridge
Mission at Delhi, lays stress on the almost incon-
ceivable difference in moral tone in India from that
which, amid all grievous shortcomings, prevails in
England. He illustrates this in particular by "the
general want of faith in man as man, the want of
trust, whether of truthfulness or trustworthiness —
the atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust on the
one hand, with their invariable correlatives of deceit,
falsehood, and untrustworthiness on the other,
which so broods over the land ; " and this he traces
in all spheres of life, political and judicial, commer-
cial, social, and domestic. The effect of this gen-
eral distrust in hindering commerce and limiting the
development of trade and of the resources of the
country, may specially appeal to us.^
Is not something of this kind the natural, the
almost necessary effect of centuries of Pantheistic
belief .? If all things are God, then bad actions as
well as good are divine, and the distinction be-
tween right and wrong disappears.^ Naturally,
* For testimonies to the degradation of woman in Hinduism, see
Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress, vol. I, p. 106.
2 The East and the West, April, 1903.
^ See Note B, p. 83.
'* J. Freeman Clark, Ten Great Religions, II, 117. So far as
Buddha himself is the object of divine worship, as would appear
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 23
then, the Hindu mind, while singularly pious, is
also singularly immoral.^ Naturally, because all
but God is illusion, and its God is not a personal
being, holding men responsible for their actions.
Buddhism has been more commonly put forward
as a rival to Christianity than Hinduism, and often
on the ground of the resemblance between the
teaching of Gotama and the teaching of Jesus
Christ. But any such resemblance is almost en-
tirely on the surface.^ Take three points out of
many, (i.) *'Real Buddhism," it has been said,
**is real atheism."^ Whatever the multitude of
deities which it recognizes and its hosts of demons,
it has no idea of a personal God, the omnipotent
creator and ruler of the world. It is occupied
chiefly with human relations, and with the career
and destiny of man as exemplified in the law of
cause and effect. Bishop Copleston, while remark-
ing that the Buddhist's belief is in reality both bet-
ter and worse than his creed, quotes the Buddhist
from the prayer quoted by Spence Hardy (given in Clarke, II, 128),
it is undoubtedly creature worship. See Liddon's Lectures on
Buddhism, Essays and Addresses, pp. 48-51.
^ See Note A, p. 81.
^ See The Dhama of Gotama the Buddha and the Gospel of Jestis
the Christ, by C. F. Aiken, especially the last chapter, "Buddhism
viewed in the light of Christianity."
^ Dux Christum, an outline study of Japan, by W. E Griffis,
p. 118.
24 FAITH AND LIFE
Catechism, "A personal God Buddhists regard as
only a gigantic shadow thrown upon the void of
space by the imagination of ignorant men."^ The
system is practically polytheistic.
(ii.) As regards man, with all its great claims
Buddhism teaches the suppression of all desire,
while it is the object of Christianity to elevate and
purify desire. The Buddhist looks forward to the
unconscious repose of Nirvana, the Christian looks
for the resurrection of the body, and the life of the
world to come.^ Consequently the path to Nirvana
is marked by the gravestones not only of every un-
worthy passion, but of every legitimate desire of
human nature. As Amiel puts it, "The Christian
says to God : Deliver us from evil. The Buddhist
^ Buddhism, Primitive and Present, in Magadha and Ceylon, by
R. S. Gppleston, Bishop of Colombo (now Bishop and Metropoli-
tan of Calcutta), p. 477.
^ Prof. Rhys Davids denies that Nirvana means annihilation,
regarding it as "A sinless, calm state of mind," or "holiness in
the Buddhist sense, perfect peace, goodness, and wisdom"; but
he admits that it implies "the cessation of individual existence."
Buddhism (in Non-Christian Religious Systems, S.P.C.K.), pp.
Ill, 112. For the Buddhist denial of any permanent independent
soul, see Copleston, pp. 113-115. "The self or personality has no
permanent reality; it is the result of certain elements coming to-
gether, a combination of faculties and character." The death of
a man is a breaking up of this combination. But these broken
elements of life tend to re-combine. In this way a man comes into
being again, unless he has entirely uprooted all desire of life, and
overcome all tendencies to re-combination.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 25
adds: And to that end deliver us from finite exist-
ence, give us back to nothingness."^ Buddha bids
men aim at inaction, indifference, and apathy, as
the highest of all states. Christianity bids us yield
ourselves unto God as those that are alive from the
dead, and our very bodily members as instruments
of righteousness unto God.^ Hence Buddhism,
when honest, is frankly pessimistic; Christianity,
when real, is of necessity optimistic. Buddhist
civilization is stagnant, while Christian civilization
is progressive.^
As bearing on a system, widely spread among
ourselves, claiming no connection with Buddhism,
but reproducing one of its most obvious differences
from Christianity, I may quote the remark of Sir
Monier Williams: "It is certainly noteworthy that
both Christianity and Buddhism agree in asserting
that all creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, in
suffering, in tribulation. But mark the vast, the
vital distinction in the teaching of each. The one
taught men to be patient under affliction, and to
aim at the glorification of the suffering body, the
other taught men to be intolerant of affliction, and
to aim at the utter annihilation of the suffering
^Amiel's Journal (Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation), vol. H,
p. 55.
2 Rom. vi. 13.
^ Dux Christ-US, pp. 119, 1^0, Aiken, p. 315.
26 FAITH AND LIFE
body." ^ How different this expectation from that
of the Christian, for whom " spirituahty " consists
not in getting free from the body and from all things
material, but in having all spiritualized by the con-
trol and interpenetration of the spirit! This is the
law of the Incarnation; this is its perfected realiza-
tion, the Christian's ultimate hope.^
(iii.) ''The motive which Buddhist morality rec-
ognizes, if it can be said to recognize any, is wholly
selfish and individual. It is not for the love of truth
or goodness, nor for the benefit of others — to recog-
nize the two principal motives recognized by other
merely human systems — it is solely for the indi-
vidual's own advantage that he is incited to culti-
^ Buddhism, p. 545; comp. p. 559.
^ "The Buddhist leaves the world and mortifies the body, be-
cause he thinks them worthless or even evil in themselves; the
Christian leaves the world because he himself is sinful, and liable
through his own fault to make a bad use of God's good creatures;
and in leaving them he feels that he sacrifices them to God. The
Buddhist's solitude is a withdrawal from all things to nothing, the
Christian's, from all other things to God." — Copleston, p. 143.
On true and false asceticism see Illingworth, Christian Char-
acter, p. 183, and a sermon of Canon Scott Holland on "The Word
was made flesh," in his volume On Behalf of Belief: "The life
of the Lord is not a movement of the human spirit upward, attain-
ing its release at death, but a descent of the Divine Spirit down-
wards, to inhabit, and possess, and secure for its own our frail and
fleshly nature." p. 252. Also an excellent paper on "Asceticism,
true and false, in the ethical teaching of St. Paul," by the Rev.
George Jackson, in The Expositor for September, 1905, p. 181.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 27
vate virtue. Nor is it a very brave or noble selfish-
ness. It seeks, not to make the best of itself, like
the Greek selfishness, but to escape from pain and
from the burdens of life. It is not ennobling.
And the idea of duty is utterly absent."^ In the
light of such and similar distinctions Bishop Cop-
leston may well say, *' The two moralities (Buddhist
and Christian) have no more in common than a list
of bones on paper has with a living body."^ "I
am painfully aware," he says, " how little Christian
conduct often corresponds to Christian standard;
but, at any rate, * Christian behaviour ' means — in all
lips — * good behaviour ' ; I suppose no one ever heard
a Sinhalese use 'Buddhist conduct' as a synonjnn
for *good conduct'."^
" It is indeed," to quote again from another great
authority on the religion of Buddha,'* "one of the
^Copleston, p. 213; comp. Monier Williams, pp. 558, 559.
"Note the vast distinction between the two systems [Christianity
and Buddhism]. Christianity demands the suppression of selfish-
ness; Buddhism demands the suppression of self, with the one
object of extinguishing all consciousness of self. In the one the
true self is elevated and intensified. In the other, the true self is
annihilated by the practice of a false fonn of non-selfishness, which
has for its real object, not the good of others, but the annihilation
of the Ego, the utter extinction of the illusion of personal individu-
ality."
2 P. 201.
^ P. 481. On the actual failure of Buddhism, see Aiken, p. 320.
* Monier Williams, p. 541.
28 FAITH AND LIFE
strange phenomena of the present day, that even
educated people who call themselves Christians, are
apt to fall into raptures over the precepts of Buddh-
ism, attracted by the bright gems which its admirers
delight in culling out of its moral code, and in display-
ing ostentatiously, while keeping out of sight all its
dark spots, all its trivialities and senseless repetitions;
not to speak of all those evidences of deep corrup-
tion beneath a whited surface, all those significant
precepts and prohibitions in its books of discipline,
which indeed no Christian could soil his lips by
uttering."
Once more; Buddhism, it should be remembered,
is in no true sense a catholic religion. Lay people,
living in families, outside the actual community, are
only regarded as associates of the monks, having
both a distinct rule and a distinct hope set before
them. So too the nuns formed an entirely auxiliary
organization, and their admission was said by
Gotama to be the sure cause of ruin to the system.^
* Copleston, pp. 204, 250. Compare Dr. Bigg on Stoicism.
"Epictetus did not like women and children, because they bored
him, and he did not see why he should be bored. These weaker
vessels take from the wise man, and give nothing in return. They
are a clog upon one who pursues inner perfection and tranquillity.
It never for a moment occurred to Epictetus that man becomes
better not by self-cultivation, but by making others better, or, in
other words, that the voluntary suffering of the good lifts up the
bad and makes the good better than he was." The Church's
Task under the Roman Empire, xiii.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 29
Bishop Graves of Shanghai says, " One has to see
Oriental creeds in action, and what the issue of them
is in Hfe, to feel perfectly sure of one's [Christian]
faith." The Bishop was writing in reply to an
enquiry about the Letters from a (supposed) Chinese
Official (since acknowledged as the work of a Fellow
of King's College, Cambridge),^ which attracted
some attention in England and America a short time
ago. Concerning the author's comparison of Con-
fucianism with Christianity, he says: "The writer
takes the worst of our morals, the weakest of our
religion, the most debasing of our industrial condi-
tions, the most pernicious of our vices, and against
them he sets, not the best that China can show, but
an exaggerated picture which is false to fact. This
is not argument, but trickery, since it presumes on
the fact that one's readers will know no better.
One could forgiv^e it if the picture were not so radi-
cally false." '
It has been seriously contended that Mohamme-
danism is better suited than Christianity to the Afri-
can races. On its failure, while lifting up savage
peoples in certain measure, to maintain a moral
" The Spirit of Missions, July, 1905, p. 517.
^ Ibid. June, 1904, p. 396. For the actual condition of China
see an article on "China's Needs," in The East and the West, Jan.,
1903, by Clement F. R. Allen, formerly British Consul at Foo-
chow.
30 FAITH AND LIFE
level. Professor Ramsay's verdict may be cited:*
He speaks of "the contrast between the earlier
glories and the later impotence and stagnation of
the peoples whom it first affected — the marvellously
rapidly educating power that it exerts on a savage
race, raising it at the first moment of conversion to
a distinctly higher level of spiritual and intellectual
life, and yet the following acquiescence in that level,
or even the sinking again below it." This failure
Dr. Ramsay without hesitation attributes to "the
utter want of education inside the home, the igno-
rance of the women and their inability to entertain
for themselves or to impress upon their children
any ideas of duty as the principle of good conduct."
With a deeper insight, and in accordance with the
line of our thought, James Freeman Clark traces
the utter inability of Mohammedanism to establish
any good government to its defective theology.
"The conclusion we must inevitably come to [from
a study of Mohammedanism as it actually exists] is,
that the worst Christian Government, be it that of
the Pope or the Czar, is very much better than the
best Mohammedan Government. Everywhere we
find arbitrary will taking the place of law. In most
places the people haye no protection for life or prop-
erty, and know the Government only through its tax-
* Historical Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatiana,
pp. 388, 389, and Letters to the Seven Churches, p. 242.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 31
gatherers. And all this is necessarily and logically
derived from the fundamental principle of Moham-
medan theology. God is pure will, not justice, not
reason, not love. Christianity says, * God is love';
Mohammedanism says, 'God is will.' Christianity
says, 'Trust in God'; Mohammedanism says, 'Sub-
mit to God.' Hence the hardness, coldness, and
cruelty of the system; hence its utter inability to
establish any good government." "Will divorced
from reason and love is wilfulness, or a purely arbi-
trary will. The monotheism of the Jews [and
therefore of Christians] differed from this, in that
it combined with the idea of will the idea of justice.
God not only does what he chooses, but He chooses
to do only what is right. Righteousness is an attri-
bute of God, with which the Jewish books are
saturated." *
The effect of this conception of an arbitrary God
on Mohammedan life is thus described by a mission-
ary at Zanzibar : " Instead of a Christian family, we
have a little or big despot with his wives and concu-
bines and slaves, doing what he wills, as he wills,
and when he wills, and this conception of the social
life is projected both by the Qur'an and the tradi-
tions into Paradise itself." ^
^ Ten Great Religions, vol. I, pp. 477, 478, and 481, 482.
^ The Contrast Between Christianity and Muhammadanism, four
lectures at Zanzibar, by the Rev. Godfrey Dale, p. 60.
32 FAITH AND LIFE
It must not be imagined that the Christian teacher
or apologist is bent on disparaging the character
or influence of non-Christian rehgious systems. We
should thankfully acknowledge all the elements of
truth which they contain, all that they have effected
for their disciples. The Word of God, who in the
fulness of time became incarnate, whom we worship
as Jesus the Christ, is, according to Christian teach-
ing, the Light that, perpetually coming into the
world, lightens every man in reason and in con-
science.^ To His inspiration we attribute all the
truth taught in varying degrees by Jewish prophets
and by heathen sages. When He came in the flesh.
His mission was not to destroy but to fulfil,^ not the
Jewish law and prophets only, but ethnic religions
likewise. In those systems we are to recognize dif-
ferent races seeking the Lord (often blindly, yet not
without guidance), if haply they may feel after Him
and find Him.^ "They partially satisfied a great
hunger of the human heart. They exercised some
restraint on human wilfulness and passion. They
have directed, however imperfectly, the human con-
science toward the right."'* The God whom they in
^ John i. 9.
2 Matt. V. 17.
^ Acts xvii. 27.
^ Ten Great Religions, vol. I, p. 7. Dr. Clark sagaciously re-
marks that the present laudation of heathen religions is a reac-
tion from the earlier disparagement of them. "An ignorant
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 33
comparative ignorance worship, we would declare
unto them as He is manifested in His incarnate
Son/ The means whereby the union with Him
that they desire may be effected, we would point
out.^ It is where these systems fail to grasp some
portion of His mind and will as revealed in Christ
that they lose directing and enabling power for the
realization of these yearnings. These deficiencies
or perversions it must be our desire to correct.
"Christianity," it has been said, "does not [so
much] differ from other religions in being true while
they are false, but [rather] in possessing the whole
of which they possess parts. "^ Consequently it is
"the universal solvent, capable of receiving into
itself the existing truths of the ethnic religions, and
fulfilling them with something higher." More
especially is it true that "the originality of Jesus
is not novelty, but vitality."^ "I am come," He
admiration of the sacred books of the Buddhists and Brahmins
has succeeded to the former ignorant and sweeping condemnation
of them." P. 13.
^ Acts xvii. 23, John i. 14.
^ "The strength of Pantheistic systems lies in that craving of
the intellect and of the heart for union with the Absolute Being,
which is the most legitimate and the noblest instinct of our nature.
This craving is satisfied by the Christian's union with the Incar-
nate One." Liddon, Bampton Lectures, viii, p. 4s57.
^Freeman Clark, Ten Great Religions, vol. 11, p. 323; comp.
the section, pp. 361-363, on "The fulness of Life."
* Ihid. I, pp. 504, 492, 445.
3
34 FAITH AND LIFE
declared, *' that men may have life, and have it more
abundantly." ^
When we point to the failures of non-Christian
religions to hallow the lives of those who profess
them, the question may be fairly asked and must be
honestly faced. How do you account for the com-
parative failures of Christianity? Granting its
great achievements, taking into account its Master's
prevision and warning that its principles would only
gradually penetrate human society,^ we must confess
to a humiliating contrast between profession and
practice, between the gifts of grace and truth which
came by Jesus Christ and the actual lives of the
^ John X. 10. It will not, it is hoped, be supposed that in the
endeavor to regard non-Christian systems fairly, and to recognize
the divine use of them, the other side is ignored. Their failures
have been pointed out. Those who as Christian missionaries are
brought into close and intimate contact with their practical work-
ing are generally inclined to view their actual influence with
greater sternness than do students at a distance. Many would
agree with Dr. Dennis's judgment that "as a whole they are so
dominated by error and corrupted in practice that the modicum
of truth which they contain has been neutrahzed and practically
reversed by the predominance of the false over the true." Chris-
tian Missions and Social Progress, vol. I, p. 461. In this light we
may understand the apostolic view expressed in 1 Cor. x. 20,
Acts xxvi, 18, 1 John v. 19 (iv rcD Tzovrjpiji, in the grasp of the
evil one).
^ E.g. in the parable of the Tares, Matt, xiii, and in the answer
to the Baptist's disciples, Matt. xi. 2-6.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 35
mass of Christian men and women. To what is
this contrast to be traced? It is, of course, partly
and largely due to the want of real surrender, as
distinct from mere profession or intellectual acqui-
escence, which (as will be shown in the next lecture)
is involved in true Christian faith. When the faith
is not heartily embraced, its legitimate consequences
cannot be expected; where the seed has not sunk
into the soil, its fruit must not be looked for. It is
also largely due to imperfect presentations of Chris-
tianity, amounting to misrepresentations and carica-
tures, which not only repel those outside its obedience
who should be attracted, but also weaken those who
are within, by a lowering of New Testament stand-
ards and requirements, such as is practically in-
volved in the popular Protestant doctrine of the
imputation of Christ's merits, or on the other hand
in a mechanical view of the operation of sacraments,
or in the granting of indulgences. The true faith
and the full faith are required. Every revealed
truth that is missed involves some moral and spir-
itual loss. And the faith must be taught intelli-
gently, otherwise the mind, having no real grasp of
it, cannot be influenced by its truths.
Here we encounter the attempts, so popular in
our day, to secure Morality without Rehgion, or at
any rate without definite religion or what is stigma-
36 FAITH AND LIFE
tized as dogmatic belief.^ This is the position of
the agnostic and of many who feel themselves forced
into a practically agnostic position by the divisions
of Christendom. Such persons fondly cherish the
hope that Christian ethics, or a large residuum
thereof, can stand by themselves apart from Chris-
tian doctrine. "Let us teach self-respect, truthful-
ness, altruism, without encumbering obvious duties
with doubtful theological propositions and unneces-
sary theological sanctions." This is the plea we
continually hear, boldly urged by the downright
secularist, and timidly echoed by the perplexed
Christian. The fallacy of such expectations must
* "The cry for a creedless religion, and for Christianity without
doctrine, may be popular with the ignorant. But teaching, when
it begins to be systematic, is doctrine; and the epitome of the ob-
jects of our belief is creed. Religion without doctrine is super-
ficial sentiment fed on phrases, and ending in atheism." — Bishop
H. E. Ryle, On the Church of England, p. 246. Compare An
Essay toward Faith, by Dr. W. L. Robbins, pp. 154, 155: "Dog-
ma is definition, nothing more. It presupposes that we know
certain truths not alone with the certitude of spiritual experience,
but according to the categories of the intellect. If we know noth-
ing we camiot dogmatize, if we know anything with certainty we
must dogmatize. It is to be regretted that the world dogma has
been appropriated so exclusively to the formulating of religious
truth, for this obscures the identity of the process with clearness
of definition in all branches of knowledge. There are dogmas of
science, dogmas of philosophy, dogmas of trade, just as truly as
there are dogmas of religion. The difference of subject-matter
and methods of arriving at conclusions, ought not to blind us to
this obvious fact."
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 37
be plainly exposed. Why should I love my neigh-
bour as myself, unless both he and I are children of
a common Father ? Why should I not enjoy myself
in the ways which most appeal to me, and then
end life when it has become too burdensome or
complicated, if this life is all that I have to expect
or there is no higher power to hold me really respon-
sible? The claims of Duty are urged; but duty
implies a definite law to be obeyed and a lawgiver/
Christianity has a definite standard, which com-
mends itself to our moral sense, though beyond our
power to discover; but without the sanction of
revelation what standard of morality is to be ac-
cepted, and on what authority is it to be enforced ?
Neither Utilitarianism nor Stoicism will, with the
mass of men, avail to resist the stress of immediate
temptation, whether in the form of passion or of
cowardice. We have a right to inquire of the
secularist as to the standard, the sanction, and the
enabling power, which he proposes to substitute for
those of the Christian religion, with its teaching con-
cerning a Creator, a Redeemer, and a Sanctifier,
God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. Were the
standard ever so clearly recognized, and the penalty
of transgression, it is not enough to perceive and
* On the theory of an Independent Morality see Guizot's
Christianity in relation to Society and Opinion, "Christianity
and Morality." .
38 FAITH AND LIFE
know what things we ought to do; the will needs to
be strengthened that we may faithfully perform the
same. It is not the Jewish law only that was weak ;
all law requires to be supplemented by grace, if it
is to become an effective instrument for righteous
conduct.
It is in vain that our attention is called to no-
ble specimens of upright and self-sacrificing lives
among those who reject the Christian revelation.
Specimens these may be, but they are not samples.
The question is of the effect of belief or unbelief on
the mass of men, and in the long run. For a while
Christian elements survive in the mental and moral
atmosphere by which those who ignore the source
of their inspiration are nourished and controlled.
Something of what we may expect when, under the
influence of purely secular education, the Christian
elements are more and more eliminated from the
atmosphere may be gathered from official reports
and statistics in our own country and in Great
Britain.
I may quote from the unchallenged Report of the
Joint Committee on Christian Education made to
our last General Convention.
"Statistics show that criminals in this country
have increased from one in every 3,442 of the popu-
lation, in 1850, to one in every 715, in 1890. Juve-
nile crime has abnormally increased. In 1899, in
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 39
one of the largest cities of this country, there were
17,300 prisoners under sixteen years of age in jail.
In the opinion of the Judge of the Juvenile Court
of another city, fifty per cent, of the boys in that city
are dishonest; out of a generation of 10,000, 2,000
have actually been in jail. So great is the want of
self-control and the awful callousness to the value
of human life, that now one death in every sixty-
five is either a murder or a suicide ; and it is pathetic
to note the great increase in the suicide of women
and school children. It is manifest that not merely
more and better education will correct such evils,
for that each advancing year must be supposed to
have brought us ; but that education effective to the
needed end must be founded upon moral principles
and impregnated with religion."^
Similar figures from the criminal statistics of
Great Britam point to the same conclusions. The
blue book of Criminal Statistics for England and
Wales for 1903 shows that "for many years up to
1899 there was a steady decline in the number of
persons tried for indictable offences, but since that
year the figures have progressively increased."^
" The figures for attempts to commit suicide continue
to show a progressive increase;"^ while in forty
years the actual suicides have increased from a pro-
* Journal of the General Gmvention, 1904, p. 526.
2 P. 13. ^P.14.
40 FAITH AND LIFE
portion of 6.71 to 10.4'2 per 100,000 of population.*
The Report for Scotland shows "that the more
serious crimes are increasing, while minor crimes
and offences are decreasing."^ The number of con-
victions of boys and girls under sixteen years of age
is emphasized, and gives, the Report says, "an un-
satisfactory indication of the manner in which many
of the young are being brought up." "It is fre-
quently said," the Report concludes, "that parental
control is now less effective than it was two genera-
tions ago, but the country at least possesses the ad-
vantage of compulsory education, and it would ap-
pear desirable that the Board School should do
more towards educating the children in principles
of good conduct and decorum." ^
Approaching the subject from a different stand-
point, but testifying to the same principle, is the
remarkable Report of the South African Native
Affairs Commission presented to the British Parlia-
ment in April, 1905. The Commissioners, eleven
laymen representing all the South African colonies,
in that part of their report which deals with " Chris-
tianity and Morals," declare:
" For the moral influence of the Natives there is
available no influence equal to that of religious be-
^ P. 21. I mention suicides in paxticular, because they seem
especially to denote the loss of religious restraints.
2 P. 7. 'P. 10.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 41
lief. The vague superstitions of the heathen are
entirely unconnected with any moral ideas, though
upon sensuality, dishonesty, and other vices there
have always been certain tribal restraints which,
while not based upon abstract morality, have been
real, and, so far as they go, effective. These re-
moved, civilization, particularly in the larger towns,
brings the Native under the influence of a social
system of which he too often sees and assimilates
the worst side only."^ The Commission considers
that the restraints of the law furnish an inadequate
check upon this tendency toward demoralization,
and that no merely secular system of morality that
might be applied would serve to raise the Natives'
ideals of conduct or to counteract the evil influences
which have been alluded to, and is of opinion that
hope for the elevation of the Native races must
depend mainly on their acceptance of Christian
faith and morals.^ "It is true that the conduct of
many converts to Christianity is not all that could
be desired, and that the Native Christian does not
appear to escape at once and entirely from certain
besetting sins of his nature; but, nevertheless, the
weight of evidence is in favor of the improved mor-
ality of the Christian section of the population, and
to the effect that there appears to be in the Native
mind no inherent incapacity to apprehend the
* Sec. 283. 2ggc.286.
42 FAITH AND LIFE
truth of Christian teaching or to adopt Christian
morals as a standard."^ "The Commission is of
opinion that regular moral and religious instruction
should be given in all native schools."^
The attempt, perfectly honest and sincere in many
cases, to establish and maintain a high standard of
righteous conduct without the motives and sanc-
tions of religion, is, we may be assured, doomed to
failure. It assumes that God need not be con-
sidered, nor man's highest faculties, as we believe
them to be, which are exercised toward Him; it
takes for granted also that the lower faculties of
man's being will prove true and efficient without
the guidance and control of the higher.^
^ Sec. 288.
^ Pages 40 and 41 of the Report.
^ See Liddon, Bampton Lectures, iii, pp. 125, 126. "Modem
unbelief may be deemed less formidable when we steadily observe
its moral impotence for all constructive purposes. Its strength
and genius lie only in the direction of destruction. It has shown
no sort of power to build up any spiritual fabric or system which,
as a shelter and a discipline for the hearts and lives of men, can
take the place of that which it seeks to destroy. Leaving some of
the deepest, most legitimate, and most ineradicable needs of the
human soul utterly unsatisfied, modern unbelief can never really
hope permanently to establish a popular * religion of humanity.'"
With this claim of the Christian apologist, it is interesting to
compare the confession of an able and high-minded sceptic con-
tained in an interesting biography recently privately printed. "At
present it is certain that with the masses no motives for goodness
have been found as effective as belief ia a merciful God, and in
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 43
If these things are so, three duties toward our
faith are clear.
1. First we must think about it. Let no one be
afraid of losing his faith by making it a subject of
serious thought. The Christian is bidden to love
God with all his mind as well as with all his heart
and soul.^ We owe to Almighty God the homage
of our intellectual powers, and their exercise upon
the truths which He has revealed. We must seek
to gain clear and more worthy ideas of the objects
of our faith. The facts will remain unchanged,
though with increased intelligence they may be
viewed and expressed in a somewhat different way.^
"Christian knowledge, which is the essence of life,
is necessarily progressive."^ Especially is there need
of maintaining " the analogy of the faith,"^ of seek-
ing to give a proportionate emphasis to the different
immortality, or indeed effective at all." "I believe that the time
will come (for as yet it has not come) when scepticism will be able
to supply an efficient motive for nobility of life — a powerful motive
for goodness — this motive is what the true philosophy should
seek, and one that rests on indisputable Fact, not on Faith."
For the deteriorating effect, in other spheres beside that of
religion, of a loss of faith, see Freeman Clark, Ten Great Religions^
vol. n, p. 350.
* Matt. xxii. 27.
^ On the distinction between facts and theories in Christian
doctrine, see Illingworth, Reason and Revelation^ pp. 141, 142.
^ Westcott, The Historic Faith, p. 164.
*Rom. xii. 6, -npoipr^Teiav xard ttjv d-vakoyiav r^g iziffreu)^.
44 FAITH AND LIFE
elements of our creed. None are to be disparaged;
the lesser and subordinate truths gain their full
force when seen in relation to the great ruling truths
which have their dominating effect on life and con-
duct.
2. Secondly, we must act upon our faith. The
figures of a shield with which to ward off tempta-
tion, and of a foundation on which to rear the super-
structure of a virtuous life, have already been re-
ferred to. In the Acts of the Apostles the Christian
religion is spoken of as "The Way."^ It is a path
of conduct marked out by Christ's example and
precepts, illuminated and made reasonable by the
great truths concerning man's origin and destiny
and his relation to his Maker. We must add to our
faith virtue, or out of our faith develope virtue,^
bringing its principles to bear upon all departments
of human life. As not only domestic and social,
but civic and commercial life likewise are seen to
be penetrated by Christian influences, so assuredly
shall we adorn and recommend the doctrine of God
our Saviour.^
3. Then, certainly, we must seek to spread our
faith. Hesitancy about the missionary work of the
Church, indifference to her enterprises, is due to
^ Acts ix. 2, xix. 9, 23, xxiv. 14, 22.
^ 2 Pet. i. 5, k-Kiy^oprjyy^aars iv r^ niaret 6jj.u)V ttjv dpeTTJv,
'^ Titus ii. 10.
THE EFFECT OF FAITH ON LIFE 46
want of a clear and strong faith. Zeal is necessarily
sapped by doubt. A real acceptance of Jesus as
the Messiah, the promised Deliverer and Teacher,
the incarnate Son of God, in whom God is made
known to men and man is brought near to God,
this belief will necessarily impel us to do all in our
power to spread to others what we have learned by
experience to value for ourselves, that the day-
spring from on high may visit them, to give light to
them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of
death, to guide their feet, with ours, into the way
of peace.^
* Luke i. 78, 79.
n
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH
LECTURE II
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH.
Faith holds the position of extraordinary im-
portance which is attributed to it in the New Testa-
ment Scriptures^ because of two considerations, its
backward and its forward reach. (1) It depends
on life. It is a test of a man's past, of his obedience
to the light which has been vouchsafed. (2) It is a
motive — if strong and clear, a determining motive —
for his future conduct. It is these two aspects of
faith that we are considering in these lectures on the
Relations of Faith and Life, the effect of Faith on
Life and of J^ife on Faith.
In the New Testament faith means more than
an intellectual recognition of a statement as being
^ E.g. John vi. 28, 29. What must we do, that we may work the
works of God ? This is the work of God, that ye believe in Him
whom He sent.
Acts xvi. 30, 31. What must I do to be saved ? Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
Acts X. 43. To Him bear all the prophets witness, that through
His name every one that believeth on Him shall receive remission
of sins.
Mark xvi. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;
but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.
4 49
50 FAITH AND LIFE
true in fact, or of a person as really possessing the
power or position which he claims. It means trust
in him whose word we accept, obedience and self-
surrender to him whose claims we acknowledge.*
Mons. Auguste Sabatier in his Religions of Authority
and the Religion of the Spirit, makes much of a dis-
tinction between Faith and Belief, "reserving the
first expression for that act of heart and will — an
essentially moral act — whereby man accepts the gift
of God and his forgiveness, and consecrates himself
to him, and applying the second to that intellectual
act by which the mind gives its consent to a historic
fact and to a doctrine." "That which saves the
soul," he continues, "is faith, not belief."^ Most
true; because in apostolic use and judgment that
* Bishop Westcott says, "Faith inckides three elements:
1. A conviction of the truth of that to which it is directed.
2. A quickening of love by which the conviction is made
personal confidence.
3. A readiness for action corresponding to the conviction."
The Historic Faith, p. 175-
Compare Peter Lombard (lib. Ill, distinct. XXIII, 4), Aliud
est enim credere in Deum, aliud credere Deo, aliud credere Deum.
Credere Deo, est credere vera esse quae loquitur, quod et mali
faciunt, et nos credimus homini, sed non in hominem. Credere
Deum, est credere quod ipse sit Deus, quod etiam mali faciunt.
Credere in Deum, est credendo amare, credendo in eum ire,
credendo ei adhaerere et ejus membris incorporari. Per hanc
fidem justificatur impius, ut deinde ipsa fides incipiat per dilec-
tionem operari. See Note C, p. 84.
2 Page 335.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 51
is no true belief which is merely intellectual.^ But
clearly (and this, while of course he does not deny
it, Sabatier fails to emphasize) the surrender of
heart and will presuppose the intellectual recogni-
tion of the truth which is to mould, or the person
who is to rule the life. He that cometh to God (or
surrendereth himself to Him) must first believe that
He is (in His existence as a living personal being),
and (in His moral character) that He shows Himself
a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."^
This intellectual recognition of personal claims,
as the basis of self-surrender, is certainly the mean-
ing of TTcffTi? in the only passage in which, as it
happens, the noun occurs in St. John's Gospel or
Epistles.^ "This is the victory that overcame the
^ Gal. V. 6, TTtffTtg St^ dydTrrj? hspyno/ii^T]. "Faith and
love, so distinct in our treatises on Christian ethics, nay often
in the pages and arguments of the New Testament, are in the liv-
ing soul practically inseparable; just as in the living body the
nervous and arterial systems are indissolubly blended, although
for the purposes of science they must be studied apart. Yes!
faith which worketh by love is the only faith worthy of the name,
the only faith which justifies the sinner. And if a soul loves, it
loves because it already believes, because by one spiritually simple
act faith has detected and love has forthwith embraced its only
adequate object," — Dr. Liddon, "Love and Knowledge," in
Sermons preached on Special Occasions, p. 289.
^ Heb. xi. 6.
^ 1 John v. 4, 5. The word is found in four places in the
Revelation: ii. 13, xiv. 12, Ti]v Ttcffrtv p.ou (Itj^oo), where it
must have an objective sense, the Christian faith or religion;
52 FAITH AND LIFE
world, our faith. Who is he that overcometh the
world save he that believeth that Jesus is the Son
of God ? " Belief in such a fact, that the historical
Jesus, in His outward lowliness, poverty, suffering,
was in truth the Son of God, supplies motives for
triumphing over the world's temptations, whether
of allurement or of threat.^ And this belief is in
itself a conquest of the world, a victory over all sorts
of worldly considerations.
It is often supposed that the acceptance of religious
truth is as simple a matter, as purely an intellectual
process, as the acceptance of mathematical or other
abstract truths. But this supposition is entirely
fallacious. Life and character have much to do in
determining faith. Let me develope this thought
under four heads, and then show how it is consist-
ently assumed in New Testament teaching.
1. Certain moral qualities are prerequisites in the
quest of truth of any kind. The student of medical,
of astronomical, of electrical science, equally with
the divine, must show diligence and perseverance,
an open and docile mind, freedom from prejudice
or envy toward others, a readiness to acknowledge
ii. 19, xiii. 10, where, associated with other virtues, it has a sub-
jective sense, of belief or trust. See Note D, p. 86.
* "Under the title, 'The World,' St. John gathers up the sum
of all the limited, transitory powers opposed to God which make
obedience difficult." — Westcott, Epistles of St. John, p. 179.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 53
that opinions previously held had been mistaken.
A splendid illustration of such qualities some will
have read in the Life of Pasteur, with his indefati-
gable industry, his minute care, his scrupulous en-
deavour to prove himself wrong before accepting as
certain a theory which to himself seemed clearly
established.^ Another illustration, in a different
sphere, may be seen in the legend placed, in ac-
cordance with his own wish, upon Bishop Creigh-
ton's monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, — "He
tried to write true history." In the words of Dr.
Illingworth,^ " If we look at the world's real thinkers,
and the lives that they have led, we see at once that
emotional and moral qualities of no mean order
are involved in the successful pursuit of even the
simplest science; while the two men who are most
associated, in the English mind, with the develop-
ment of scientific method — F. Bacon and J. S. Mill
— are equally emphatic in tracing intellectual falla-
cies to ethical causes."^
2. Where the subject matter is religious truth,
there is an added need of moral qualities, because
demands are made upon life and conduct of quite
^ "In experimental science it is always a mistake not to doubt
when facts do not compel affirmation." — The Life of Pasteur, by
Rene Vallery-Radot (trans, by Mrs. Devonshire), vol. I, p. 122.
^ Personality, Human and Divine, p. 115.
^SeeNoteE, p. 87.
54 FAITH AND LIFE
a different character from any which are involved
in the acceptance of scientific facts.* A man has no
interest in denying that four times four make six-
teen, or that two sides of a triangle are always
greater than the third side. On the other hand, he
has a foresight of sacrifices involved in the acknowl-
edgment that Jesus is Lord.^
In primitive days the profession of Christianity
meant oftentimes the sacrifice of position, of posses-
sions, of friends, and reputation. To ally oneself
with the despised, suspected, hated sect of the Naz-
arenes was to incur ridicule and scorn, if not actual
persecution. No wonder, then, that St. Paul, who
had had personal experience of the trial, wrote, " Ye
see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many
noble are called,"^ and St. James, **Hath not God
chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith "? " ^
The Lord Himself had opened His beatitudes with
the declaration, "Happy are the poor in spirit, for
* For the development of this thought of " the truant action of the
will interfering with the clear and direct intuitions of the intellect,"
see Dr. Liddon on "The Conflict of Faith with undue Exaltation
of Intellect," in the first series of his University Sermons, p. 169;
(comp. p. 11), and on "Personal Responsibility for the gift of
Revelation," in his Sermons preached on Special Occasions, p.
150.
2 1 Cor. xii. 3. ^1 Cor. i. 26.
* James ii. 5.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 55
theirs is the kingdom of heaven," ^ and had warned
of the hindrances that worldly possessions w ould put
in the way of accepting the truth, " Verily I say unto
you, that a rich man shall hardly (with difficulty)
enter into the kingdom of heaven." ^
The case is the same to-day in heathen countries,
for instance in India, where the loss of caste, with
all that it involves in exclusion from home and
family, as well from social position and privileges,
presents a formidable barrier to the Christian en-
quirer or convert.^
And is it wholly different among ourselves, when,
in the midst of those who profess and call themselves
Christians, a young man gives himself to a thor-
ough-going obedience to the precepts and example of
Jesus Christ, or in correspondence with a special
vocation desires to dedicate his life and substance
to His entire and distinct service? Downright
Christian discipleship will certainly involve worldly
loss of one kind or another. The prevision of this
must necessarily disturb the balance of calm intel-
lectual judgment. For the acceptance of Christ's
claims there is needed an unworldly spirit. He that
would be Christ's must be prepared to deny himself
and take up his cross.'* ,
* Matt. V. 3. 2 Matt. xix. 23.
^ See the extremely interesting Life of Father Goreh, by C. E.
Gardner and R. M. Benson. ^ Mark viii. 34.
66 FAITH AND LIFE
Moreover sacrifices of a more personal character
are involved, not only in the initial profession of the
Christian faith, but in correspondence with any
further and fuller revelations of Christian truth.
A man perceives that this or that cherished indul-
gence or practice, now perhaps doubtfully allowed
by his own conscience, is condemned by the Chris-
tian law and would be incompatible with a Christian
profession.
Among the main factors combining to create the
reactionary movement against things and ways for-
eign which was felt in Japan ten years or so ago,
Mr. Sidney Gulick reckons the high ethical demand
of Christianity in the daily life of professed Chris-
tians.^ "Another factor checking the rush into the
Christian Church was the demand of Christian
ethics. Without detailed knowledge of Christianity
many eminent men had been advocating its wide
adoption. But when they came into close contact
with it, and learned its specific requirements, many
drew back. When they discovered that to be a
Christian and to become a member of the Church
meant the giving up of concubinage, abstinence from
intoxicants, from carousals at tea-houses and
brothels, that it involved truth-telling and purity in
personal life with active participation in the support
and propagation of the new faith, many hesitated
* The White Peril in the Far East, p. 44.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 57
before taking the radical step. They had supposed
that Christianity, like their own religion, was carried
on by its missionaries and pastors, leaving the lay-
man free to do pretty much as he liked. That a
religious brotherhood should keep strict watch over
the moral conduct of its members was a new
idea."
How many persons in our congregations are kept
back from Baptism or Confirmation by this sort of
consideration, by an unwillingness to submit to a
stricter rule ! There is needed a readiness to follow
where truth, if acknowledged, may lead. A god-
less life indisposes a man to believe in the God of
the Christian Scriptures, whose condemnation, if He
really exists, the man knows himself to deserve.
Acknowledgment of such doctrines as the Incarna-
tion, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or sacra-
mental grace, is seen to carry with it consequences
concerning the sacredness of the human body,
which make far more heinous sins of which he has
been accustomed to think but lightly, and involve a
degree of penitence from which he shrinks.^ He is
accordingly naturally indisposed to accept such
doctrines; as he is naturally inclined to wish that
New Testament teaching concerning future punish-
ment or loss may not be true, since, if it be so, his
own condition must be one of grave peril. In all
^ 1 Cor. vi. 19.
58 FAITH AND LIFE
such cases the will has a subtle but strong purchase
over the understanding in matters of belief. As St.
Thomas Aquinas says. Unbelief, while intellectual
in form and expression, frequently has its ground
and roots in the heart and will, the moral nature.^
Our time and circumstances differ from those of
Massillon. But to not a few amongst us might be
applied the severe characterization given in his ser-
mon on " Doubts about Religion " : *' The greatest
part of those who call themselves unbelievers are
licentious enough to wish to be so; too ignorant to
^ Summa, Sec. Secundae, qu. x, art. iii. "Dissentire, qui est
proprius actus infidelitatis est actus intellectus, sed moti a
voluntate, sicut et assentire." "Infidelitas, sicut et fides, est qui-
dem in intellectu sicut in proximo subjecto; in voluntate autem
in principio motivo." "Causa infidelitatis est in voluntate; sed
ipsa infidelitas est in intellectu."
This is the meaning of St. Augustine's famous phrase, qui
voluerunt crediderunL In a sermon on St. John xvi. 9, he is
refuting the excuse of those who said they were hindered by the
devil from believing in Christ. But the devil has been cast out,
so that he can no longer keep back from the truth those who have
the will to receive it. He is now only allowed to attack us from
without, and the martjTS, not only men, but even women, and
boys, and girls, have overcome him.
Recte itaque idem Spiritus arguit mundum, et de peccato, quia
non credit in Christum: et de justitia, quia qui voluerunt credi-
derunt, quamvis in quern crediderunt non viderunt; et per ejus
resurrectionem se quoque in resurrectione perfici speraverunt:
et de judicio, quia ipsi si vellent credere, a nullo perdirentur,
quoniam princeps hujus mundi jam judicatus est. Serm. cxliii.
de verb. Ev. Johxm,
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 59
be so in reality; and nevertheless sufficiently vain
to wish to appear so." *
3. We may take a further step, and see that for
the acceptance of religious truth a certain spiritual
sympathy is required. Like knows like, the com-
mon proverb says. St. John is only applying this
principle when he declares, "He that loveth not,
knoweth not God, for God is love." ^ Let us look
at this more closely. Pride, or the inordinate love of
self, is an obstacle to faith. There is not only the
foolish pride which fancies that scepticism is a sign
of superior intelligence, as if the last word of culture
were the confession of ignorance concerning man's
deepest interests; and the pride which rebels at the
idea of mystery, practically refusing to acknowledge
the limitations of the human intellect ; a more subtle
but deeper obstacle is the pride which is repelled
by the lowliness of the Incarnation, that cannot
understand how God should stoop so low, since
such conduct is inconceivable for itself. The ex-
clamation of Nestorius, "I will never accept an
infant of three months for my God," may have been
due to a misunderstanding of the Catholic doctrine
^ La plupart de ceux qui se disent incredules dans le monde
sont assez deregles pour desirer de 1' etre, trop ignorants pour I'etre
en effet, et assez vains cependant pour vouloir le paroitre. Ser-
mon, Des Doutes sur la Religion. (Euvres, t. iv.
^ 1 John iv. 8.
60 FAITH AND LIFE
of the Incarnation. Similar denials of the faith
may not infrequently be traced to a moral source.
Selfishness is incapable of understanding the self-
sacrifice of the Cross. If the doctrine of the Re-
demption be accepted, it is too often perverted and
misrepresented in the interest of selfishness, to the
extent of a caricature. The offering of the all but
infinite suffering of the Innocent in satisfaction for
the sins of the guilty, enabling them, if only thor-
oughly persuaded of their personal share in this
arrangement, to live at ease, has been substituted,
in the popular conception, for the New Testament
teaching of a victorious struggle with evil on the
part of our great Representative, with which strug-
gle we must associate ourselves under His leader-
ship if we would benefit by His self-sacrifice. " Know
ye not that so many of us as were baptized into
Jesus Christ were baptized into His death ^ Our old
man was crucified with Him, ... that henceforth
we should not serve sin." "They that are Christ's
crucified the flesh with its lusts and passions." ^
In the case of a human personality sympathy is
needed for any real understanding of another's
character. Again we quote Dr. Illingworth,^ "Not
only must the necessary insight be the result of our
own acquired capacities — which will have to be
^ Rom. vi. 3, 6, Gal. v. 24; comp. Col. iii. init, 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.
^Personality, Human and Divine, p. 117.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 61
great, in proportion to the greatness of the person-
aHty with which we have to deal — but there must
further exist the kind and degree of affinity between
us, which only can make self -revelation on his part
possible. Plato, for instance, the spiritual philoso-
pher, saw more profoundly into Socrates than could
Xenophon, his companion in arms. Shakespeare
and de Balzac, in their different spheres, were un-
rivalled students of humanity: yet the latter could
not see in it pure womanhood, the former has never
painted a saint, so essentially is even the intuition
of genius qualified by character." The generous ap-
preciate simplicity, the chivalrous purity; while to
the mean and sensual such virtues are incompre-
hensible puzzles. This, I repeat, is the principle
which St. John enunciates when he says, " Love is
of God — has its source, as v^ ell as its perfect realiza-
tion, in Hini — and every one that loveth is begotten
of God — derives from God his moral and spiritual
life — and knoweth God. He that loveth not —
whatever else he knoweth — knoweth not God; for
God is love." ^
^ 1 John iv. 7, 8. See Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, p.
148. "He that loveth derives his spiritual being from God, and
of necessity therefore is in sjniipathy with Him, and knows Him
(yiyvcofTxti), that is, recognizes every revelation which shows
more of Him." "As the presence of active love is the pledge of
advancing knowledge, so the absence of love is the proof that
apparent knowledge was not real. 'He that loveth not, knew not
62 FAITH AND LIFE
4. Once more. Spiritual things are spiritually
discerned.* Spiritual faculties must therefore be
developed. Otherwise they will surely lose their
vigor and gradually become atrophied, as surely
as unexercised members of the physical body, or
unused powers of mind. The conscience, like the
memory, requires training. Habits of prayerlessness
incapacitate a man for spiritual vision, as sensuality
dims the eye of the soul, and worldliness, with its
greed of gain and honour, smothers higher aspira-
tions.^ "Practical materialism is not a creed issu-
ing in a conduct, but a conduct issuing in a creed;
it means sensuality in one form or another, a life
interested in and therefore exclusively attentive to
the enjoyments and employments of sense. "^ Man
is not a merely intellectual, any more than a merely
animal, being. He is endowed with heart and con-
science. It is to the whole man that God appeals.
It is by the balanced and harmonious exercise of all
our faculties that His word is to be recognized and
welcomed. Again and again instances occur where
intellectual arguments are fairly balanced, and
moral considerations turn the scale. The sense of
God' (oox e^vw), when he made profession of knowing Him.
His acknowledgment of God (as at Baptism) was based on no
true recognition of His natm-e."
* 1 Cor. ii. 14.
2 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4.
^ Dlingworth, Reason and Revelation, p. 175.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 63
duty, the instinct of right, an impulse of affection,
come to the rescue of a perplexed and bewildered
intellect. The pure in heart, not the keen in mind,
see God, and understand the things of God.^
There are arguments of a distinctly moral char-
acter on the side of Christian belief that require
moral judgment for their weighing; as the con-
sideration that, if God really exists, there is an
antecedent probability that He would reveal Him-
self to man, and not allow yearnings and aspirations
which He has implanted in our nature to be cheated
or mocked. Again, the appeal of Christ's moral
character in evidence of His claims requires appre-
ciation of moral beauty.^ The hearing ear and the
seeing eye are needed.
The conscience when cultivated becomes more
and more delicate and keen in its perceptions and
judgments. In this sense most certainly does the
law of retribution work : " He that hath to him shall
be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken
even that which he hath."^ As on the one hand we
^ Matt. V. 8.
^John vii. 16-18. The Jews were unable to appreciate the
perfectly disinterested claims and conduct of Jesus (comp. v. 43).
Men are naturally inclined to receive those (like political adven-
turers) who act on the same principles of self-interest with them-
selves.
' Mark iv. 24. The appropriation of any measure of Divine
truth implies a capacity for receiving more; and each gift, if assim-
64 FAITH AND LIFE
may come to know with an experimental certainty
spiritual truths which at first we believed on others'
testimony,^ so, on the other hand, truth not acted
upon becomes less clear and fades away. As men
have not liked to retain God in their knowledge,
God has given them over to a reprobate, that is,
an undiscerning mind.^
Dr. Illingworth points out how this difference in
intellectual attitude resulting from moral causes,
agrees with the stress laid by modern psychology on
the part played by interest and attention, that is, by
feeling and will, in determining our experience, and
therefore our knowledge. *'Take the case of a
child who has been carefully trained from infancy
to admire goodness, to obey conscience, to prefer
duty to pleasure; who has responded to this teach-
ing during those early days in which the founda-
tions of character are laid, and continues this re-
sponse during mature years; and contrast it with
that of one who, with progressive abandonment, has
pursued pleasure and self-will. The former will
ilated, is the forerunner of another. Bede: qui amorem habet
verbi dabitur illi etiam sensus intellegendi quod amat. But the
converse is also true: incapacity for receiving truth leads to a loss
of truth already in some sense possessed. The paradoxical form
of the original tradition is removed by Luke, who writes o 8oxet
e;^££v— H. B. Swete on St. Mark, p. 79.
* 2 Pet. i. 5. See Note F. p. 88.
2 Rom. i. 28.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 65
have gained a more accurate sense of the distinction
between good and evil ; he will know goodness from
the inside, and consequently feel its attraction; in
the language of the psychologists, he will be inter-
ested in it, and therefore direct his attention to it,
and therefore recognize it wherever it exists. But
the latter — it is a fact of daily experience — will
gradually lose his sense of moral distinctions, till
he is unable to recognize goodness when he sees it,
attributing its appearance to unworthy motives,
assimilating it, that is, to the only thing that he now
knows, and regarding it as a form of evil." " Hence
while the moral insight of the bad man is progres-
sively atrophied, that of the good man is intensified
as years go on. And it is obvious how this will
affect their estimate of the moral evidences of re-
ligion. Tl;e prevalence of pain in the world, for
example, will afford hopeless perplexity to the man
for whom pleasure is the only good; whereas the
man who can so recognize its disciplinary value as
to say, * It is good for me that I have been in
trouble,' will to that extent, at any rate, see in it
a proof, instead of a disproof, of the goodness of
God."i
In such considerations as the foregoing we see an
ample justification of the importance attached to
^ Reason and Revelation, pp. 168, 169,
66 FAITH AND LIFE
faith in the New Testament, an importance which
would be altogether unintelligible if faith were
merely an intellectual assent. Faith comes under
the head of moral certainties. There is always, as
indeed is the case with belief in our fellow men, a
certain venture in faith, a trusting to evidence falling
short of absolute proof, which the witness of the
heart and conscience justifies.^ We trust the integ-
rity of a friend against adverse appearances not
merely because we cannot bear to think of his char-
acter as stained, but because our love and intimacy
have enabled us to see in him what others have not
seen, and what we are sure will vindicate our
trust. Accordingly our Lord declares it to be
the mark of an evil and adulterous generation
to seek after a sign. The heart, He means,
not being attuned in faithful love, does not read-
ily perceive God's word, it requires compelling ev-
idence.^
It is in the Fourth Gospel more particularly, but
^ See chap. ii. in A Christian Apologetic, by Dr. W. L. Robbins,
now Dean of the General Theological Seminary. "In seeking to
prove that it is reasonable to believe, we do not take upon ourselves
the task of pretending an irrefragable demonstration. . . . Spir-
itual things, from their very nature, are not to be demonstrated by
any purely intellectual process. The most that reason can do is
to clear the ground; its function is only indirect in generating
belief." P. 12.
^ Matt. xii. 39; comp. John xx, 29, iv. 48.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 67
by no means exclusively,^ that this view of faith and
its moral aspect is insisted upon. Every manifesta-
tion of Christ is represented as having a judicial
character; His coming is always a xpht?, testing
man's present disposition, showing what has been
his previous correspondence with intimations of
God's mind and will. The constant teaching of
our Lord is summed up in His great declaration,
" God sent not His Son into the world to judge (or
condemn) the world; but that the world through
Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is
not condemned: but he that believeth not is con-
demned already, because he hath not beheved in
the name of the only begotten Son of God. And
this is the condemnation, that light is come into the
world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil. For every one that
practiseth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to
the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But
he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his
deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought
in God." 2
^ Acts xiii. 48, i-rtiareoaav oaoi ^(jav TeTayfxivot eig ^lorjv
Luke ii. 34, xtixai ej? izruxnv xa\ dvdffrafftv tcoXXwv.
2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. This of course is the justification of Mark
xvi. 16.
^ Johniii. 17-21. He did not come to judge {obx ha xphrj),
yet judgment must necessarily follow (e/s" xpifia ix. 39). Our
68 FAITH AND LIFE
The very word that He has spoken, Christ warns,
will judge men at the last day.^
"Why do ye not understand my speech?" He
asks of the cavilling Jews ; and Himself answers the
question, *' Because ye cannot hear my word." His
outward discourse (XaXia) was unintelligible to
them, because they were too obtuse to hear its
counterpart within Q-oyo^)?
"He that is of God — ^who derives from God his
moral life — heareth God's words: ye therefore hear
them not," He declares, "because ye are not of
God." Ye may be called His children by outward
and federal relationship, but there is no inner cor-
respondence of character.^
"Ye have not His word abiding in you;" it is
purely external, in your hands, not in your hearts.^
"Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed
me," since the whole teaching and discipline of the
Law was a preparation for His coming."
Lord is the world's Saviour; yet His message is, and cannot but
be, its judge. "Every revelation of God, every interposition of
His Providence, every added light, every motion of His grace,
must needs involve a sifting time. The more the light shines, the
more, through that free-will, with which God has endowed us,
must men come into the light or retreat into darkness. The choice
brings out what they were, and, if evil, aggravates it." Dr.
Pusey, "The Responsibility of Intellect in Matters of Faith,"
p. 31, in his University Sermons, vol. III.
^ John xii. 48. ^ John viii. 43. ^ John viii. 47.
^ John V. 38. ' John v. 46,
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 69
"His sheep," the good Shepherd declares, '*hear
His voice;" those who, whether in the Jewish fold
or in some other preparatory dispensation, have
been taught and trained by Him, even though they
knew but dimly \^Tio it was that spoke to them,
recognize the sweet authority of His voice when He
comes in plainer manifestation. Obedience to
known truth is the condition of receiving further
revelations.*
To Pilate He declares, " Every one that is of the
truth heareth my voice." Think of the real signifi-
cance of that scene. In outward appearance, Jesus,
the prophet of Nazareth, stands before the tribunal
of the Roman governor, a prisoner accused of re-
bellion against Csesar. To a deeper view, Pontius
Pilate is being judged by the Word of God for dis-
loyalty to His utterances in the man's conscience.
Had these been faithfully obeyed, there would have
followed recognition of the Word now clothed in
flesh. " Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice. ^
*'If any man willeth to do the will of God, he,"
Christ promises, "shrJl know of the teaching,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak from my-
self." ^ Obedience is the road to faith. Moral
obstacles in the way of belief are removed by
* John X. 3, 14-16, 27. ^ John xviii. 37.
^ John vii. 17.
70 FAITH AND LIFE
obedience; a favourable atmosphere for spiritual
vision is formed.
On the other hand, He asks of the ruling classes
of the Jews, **How can ye believe, who receive
honour one from another, and seek not the honour
which Cometh from the only God ? " (that is, the only
being from whom it is really worth while to seek
praise.)^ The vision of truth is distorted by pride,
vainglory, and self-interest. So it was that many
of the chief rulers, although convinced of the truth
of the claims of Jesus, dared not acknowledge Him,
for fear lest they should be put out of the synagogue ;
they loved and valued the praise of men more than
the praise of God.^
Quite naturally St. John, remembering this re-
iterated teaching of his Master, laid down in his
Epistle the principle and text, "He that knoweth
God heareth us," or more literally, He who is learn-
ing to know God (o yiyvdxjxojv Tov 0£ov), as He pre-
sents Himself in conscience, in nature, in earlier re-
ligious teaching, — he listens to us, His messengers
and witnesses.^
Here we see (do we not?) the meaning of our
^ V. 44. ^ xii. 42, 43; comp. ix. 22.
^ 1 John iv. 6. The true disciple is represented " as one who
is ever advancing in the knowledge of God, and whose power of
hearing and learning is given by this attitude of faithful expec-
tancy."— Westcott, EpisUes of St. John, p. 145.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 71
Lord's words which sometimes have seemed puzz-
ling: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to
me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out ; " " No one cometh to me except the Father
who sent me draw him;" "Every one who heareth
from the Father, and so learneth, cometh to me."^
"We are given to Christ of God, not by any
arbitrary selection which the Father makes, but as
a true consequence of having used more or less
aright the moral nature which the Father had
given." ^ All who are true to that moral nature
which God has implanted in man will come to this
fuller manifestation of God vouchsafed in Christ.
They will recognize it, be prepared for it, welcome
it as the satisfaction of their longings and needs.
The law given in conscience, as well as that given
through Moses, is a T.aidaywyo^; to prepare us
for Christ.^ This preparatory function it fulfils
both by presenting a high ideal of human sanctity
to the soul, so that when One came who realized
* John vi. 37, 44, 45. Note the Greek of ver. 37, ttccv o diduxjt
fxoi 6 -azT/p 7r/?o? ^,as fyl^er xai rov ip^6fi£\>ov 7:p6<^ fie oh fiij
^£Xj3dXaj e^o).
^ Bihle Teachings (St. John vi.), by R. M. Benson, p. 25.
^ Gal. iii. 24. See Dr. Liddon on the "Tutorial Office of the
Jewish Law," in his Sermons on some words of St. Paid. Dr.
Bigg describes the Tzacdayajyo^ as "half valet, half tutor; his
duties were to act as body-servant, to convey his young master to
and from school, and to see that the tasks were properly prepared."
— The Church's Task under the Roman Empire, p. 18.
72 FAITH AND LIFE
that ideal men would accept Him, and also by mak-
ing the sense of personal shortcoming so keen that
they would gladly welcome His offer of aid by which
to attain this standard.
In one of his many sermons dealing with this
moral side of faith, Dr. Newman shows how these
principles which we have seen laid down in St.
John's writings are historically illustrated in the
Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.^
"As far as we can trace the history, we find the
early Christian Church was principally composed of
those who had long been in the habit of obeying
their consciences carefully, and so preparing them-
selves for Christ's religion, that kingdom of God
from which they were not far.^ Zacharias and
Elizabeth, to whom the approach of Christ's king-
dom was first revealed, are described as 'both right-
eous before God, walking in all the commandments
of the Lord, blameless.'^ Joseph, St. Mary's hus-
band, is called 'a just man';^ Simeon is spoken of
as *a just and devout man'; Nathanael, as 'an
Israelite in whom was no guile';" Joseph of Ari-
mathea was 'a good man and a just';^ Cornelius,
the centurion, was a 'religious man, and one that
^ "Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ," Parochial
and Plain Sermons, vol. VIII, p. 207.
2 Mark xii. 34. ^ Luke i. 6.
^ Matt. i. 19. ' Luke ii. 25.
^ John i. 47. ' Luke xxiii. 50.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 73
feared God with all his house, who gave much alms
to the people, and prayed to God alway/^ And in
the book of iVcts generally, we shall find (as far as
we are told anything) that those chiefly were ad-
dressed and converted by St. Paul, who had pre-
viously trained themselves in a religious life: — ^At
Perga, St. Paul addressed the Israelites and those
who feared God, not the mere thoughtless heathen;
and many of these followed him.^ At Thessalonica
a great multitude of religious Greeks believed;^ and
at Athens the Apostle still disputed with the Jews,
and with the professedly religious persons, though
he also addressed the educated heathens who lived
there. Here then is much evidence that Christ and
His Apostles chiefly sought and found their first
followers, not among open sinners, but among those
who were endeavoring, however imperfectly, to obey
God."
In conclusion let me sum up what has been said
in three practical hints.
1. We see how faith may be lost.^ We are some-
* Acts X. 2. ^ Acts xiii. ^ Acts xvii.
* "It is a childish error to conceive that one can believe once for
all; as well say that one can love once for all. Faith is the soul's
grasp on God, that hold may slacken, aye, be lost, save as the
eager endeavour of the spirit makes it firmer day by day. Faith
never remains stationary, it is ever increasing or diminishing. It
74 FAITH AND LIFE
times surprised and perplexed at professions of un-
belief on the part of one whose convictions had
seemed both intelligent and strong. God forbid
that in any particular case we should presume to
pronounce judgment upon the person who has lost
hold on what had been a prized possession. But it
should be plainly said that there is at least the possi-
bility that loss of faith may be due to a lowering of
moral fibre. The mystery of the faith — the revela-
tion of God in Christ — must be held, as St. Paul
reminds Timothy, in a pure conscience. "A true
belief will not long survive unfaithfulness to God's
inward voice." Some, the Apostle says, having put
away, or thrown overboard, a good conscience, have
made shipwreck of the faith. ^ Christian faith, in
its fullest sense, is an interior habit of the soul, the
result of the indwelling of the Spirit of truth. But
crooked thoughts separate from God. Into a mali-
cious soul wisdom will not enter, nor dwell in the body
which is subject unto sin. The holy spirit of disci-
pline will flee deceit, and remove from thoughts that
are without understanding, and will be put to confu-
sion when unrighteousness cometh in.^ The Spirit
demands sacrifice of every kind as the condition of its growth.
The spirit must be nerved to brave effort, or it will inevitably flag
in its task." — Robbins, An Essay toward Faith, p. 92.
^ 1 Tim. iii. 9, i. 19, and Dr. Liddon's comment on the latter
passage.
2 Wisdom i. 3-5.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 75
of truth is also the Spirit of love and purity. We
cannot reckon on His aid and guidance for one pur-
pose, if we are not seeking it, much less if we are
rejecting it, for another. His illumination of the
mind accompanies His purification of the heart.
2. In seasons of doubt or uncertainty, such as
may come to any of us, we must not fret or impa-
tiently insist on an immediate solution of our diffi-
culties. The temptation at such times is to treat
everything as uncertain, because some things are not
clear. On the contrary, our safety is found in tena-
ciously clinging to all the truth of which we are sure,
in removing any moral obstacles that may stand in
the way of faith, and then in patiently waiting for
clouds to pass, for fuller and clearer ideas to dawn
upon us. The pure in heart and single-minded
shall see God.^ Sooner or later they shall come to
know who 'follow on to know the Lord.^ If stress
has been continually laid on the necessity of remov-
ing moral obstacles which hinder acceptance of the
truth, let us not forget that there are positive virtues
and an appropriate temper of mind which fit us for
the reception of God's word. "To the meek
mysteries are revealed."^ "Them that are meek
shall He guide in judgment, and such as are gentle
them shall He learn His way."*
* Matt. V. 8, comp. Luke x. 21. ^ Hos. vi. 3.
^ Ecclus. iii. 19. * Ps. xxv. 8, comp. James i. 21.
76 FAITH AND LIFE
3. So likewise in our endeavours to win others to
the faith, whether those who are altogether strangers
to its claims and promises, or those whom we would
help to a fuller appreciation of its blessing, we must
be constructive, helping them to be true to all they
know, building up, so far as may be, their moral
life, and so preparing them to welcome the fuller
illumination and strength to which we point. In
the teaching of religious truth, whatever foes we
may have to battle with, we have, let us never for-
get it, an ally within. In the message of the Chris-
tian teacher God does not speak to any for the first
time. None start perfectly blank, with a tabula
rasa} Reason and conscience will respond to the
appeal, recognizing the fuller presentation of truth
which has been already taught in less clear and
harmonious fashion. There is an order in Divine
revelation. The Old Testament with its moral pre-
cepts goes before the New Testament with its offers
of spiritual aid. Indifference to religious truth,
which at any rate in a professedly Christian country
is largely due to moral causes, must be broken
through by the stern rebukes of the law and the
prophets, before the beauty and the value of the
gospel will be appreciated. John the Baptist ever
prepares the way for Jesus. The preaching of re-
pentance must precede the proclamation of the
^ On intuitive moral perceptions, see Lecky, Note G, p. 89.
THE EFFECT OF LIFE ON FAITH 77
Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
To one who is really in earnest, honestly desiring
to translate into action the highest ideal of moral
truth which God in conscience has set before him,
the vast moral assistance which the gospel affords
will be its justification/ This is in effect the con-
stant teaching of the great Christian apologist,
Blaise Pascal, in his Pensees. In the words of the
late Dean Church, himself a master of Christian
divinity, doctrinal and practical, "It is implied in
every line of Pascal that truth in religion is abso-
lutely, and from the very nature of the case, de-
pendent on moral purity and faithfulness. It is
the great warning of Pascal, that if men would find
and know God, they must begin by trying to do His
will; they must act according to the greatness of
the occasion, and to the laws not of one part only,
but of their whole human nature; they must pre-
pare their souls, habits, and tempers and will, as
well as intellect."^
^ Comp. Illingworth, Reason and Revelation, p. 147: "It is only
as the climax of the religious education and development of man-
kind that Christianity presents itself to the world, and only in this
connexion that it can be understood."
^ Pascal and other Sermons, p. 22.
NOTES
A. Intimate connexion between Faith and Morals
in Christianity.
B. Obstacles to Commercial Development in
India.
C. Use of TitffTeuecv in N. T.
D. Use of TztiTTc? and yj Tztffrt?.
E. J. S. Mill on Moral Sources of Erroneous
Opinion.
F. Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel.
G. Lecky on Intuitive Moral Perceptions.
NOTES
NOTE A (pp. 17, 28).
The Intimate Connexion between Faith and Mobalb
IN Christianitt.
Mr. Lecky thus summarizes the causes of the triumph
of Christianity: "No other rehgion, under such circumstances,
had ever combined so many distinct elements of power and
attraction. Unlike the Jewish rehgion, it was bound by no
local ties, and was equally adapted for every nation and every
class. Unlike Stoicism, it appealed in the strongest manner to
the affections, and offered all the charms of a sympathetic wor-
ship. Unlike the Egyptian rehgions, it united with its distinctive
teaching a pure and noble system of ethics, and proved itself capa-
ble of realizing it in action. It proclaimed, amid a vast move-
ment of social and national amalgamation, the imiversal brother-
hood of mankind. Amid the softening influence of philosophy
and civilization it taught the supreme sanctity of love." History
of European Morals, vol. I, p. 412. Concerning the intimate con-
nexion between morals and faith in the Christian Religion, Mr.
Lecky says: "To incorporate moral culture with religion . . .
was among the most important achievements of Christianity. . .
It was the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity, that its
moral influence was not indirect, casual, remote, or spasmodic.
Unlike all Pagan rehgions, it made moral teaching a main func-
tion of its clergy, moral disciphne the leading object of its services,
moral dispositions the necessary condition of the due performance
of its rites. By the pulpit, by its ceremonies, by all the agencies
of power it possessed, it laboured systematically and perseveringly
for the regeneration of mankind. Under its influence, doctrines
concerning the nature of God, the immortality of the soul, and the
duties of men, which the noblest intellects of antiquity could barely
82 NOTES
grasp, have become the truisms of the village school, the proverbs
of the cottage and of the alley." Vol. II, p. 2. See also the testi-
mony of the experienced missionary, Bishop Caldwell, quoted by
Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress, vol. I, p. 72.
"Undoubtedly Indian literature contains a large amount of moral
teaching, some of which is of a very high order; but it is a remark-
able circumstance, and one which European Christians find it
difficult to believe or even to comprehend, that this moral teaching
is totally unconnected with religious worship. . . . Morality is
supposed to consist merely in the discharge of the duties of our
caste and station towards our fellow-men. . . . Religion, on the
other hand, is supposed to rise far above such petty considerations
as the social duties, and to consist solely in the worship of the gods
by means of the appointed praises, prayers, and observances in
the hope of obtaining thereby union with the Supreme Spirit and
final emancipation. The duties of life are never inculcated in any
Hindu temple. The discharge of these duties is never represented
as enjoined by the gods, nor are any prayers ever offered in any
temple for help to enable the worshippers to discharge these duties
aright. It would be hard indeed even to conceive the possibility
of prayers for purity ever being offered in a Hindu temple to a
divinity surrounded by a bevy of dancing-girls. . . . There is no
such teaching of morality as this by any Brahman or priest in any
temple in all India. Hence we often see religion going in one
direction and morality in another. We meet with a moral Hindu
who has broken altogether away from religion, and, what is still
more conmaon, yet still more extraordinary, we meet with a devout
Hindu who lives a flagrantly immoral life. In the latter case no
person sees any inconsistency between the immorality and the
devoutness. Christianity, on the other hand, unites morality to
religion by an indissoluble bond. It teaches that the right dis-
charge of our duties to our fellow-men is an essential portion of the
duty we owe to God, and that the very purpose for which Christ
came into the world was ' that He might redeem us from all in-
iquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works.' "
NOTES 83
NOTE B (p. 22).
Obstacles to Commercial Development in Indli.
"Let me turn for a moment to their commercial life. What
is it which so contracts the limits of native enterprise, and so hin-
ders the development of those resources which the country un-
doubtedly possesses, but the development of which is confined at
present almost wholly to English capital and English energy?
There are, I believe, two chief causes. On the one hand, while
the actual wealth of the country has, it can scarcely be doubted,
considerably increased, the sense of public credit, the kind of trust
which is an absolute condition of all commercial enterprise and
all banking operations, is almost wholly lacking, and the money is
accordingly hoarded away in the earth, and only borne witness to
by the profuse masses of gold and silver jewellery which load their
women on all great occasions. A recent writer in India estimates
the amount of bullion which during the last forty years has entered
the country and been disposed of in the above manner, leaving
scarcely a trace of itseK in the quarters where one would be certain
to find it in England, at about 350 millions sterling [1,750 millions
of dollars]. And similar in kind is the chief cause which so limits
the development of the trade and resources of the country. So
deeply does the spirit of distrust pervade the commercial classes
that all enterprise involving the cooperation of others is shrunk
from, and even that partnership in business so universal, so essen-
tial among ourselves, is with rare exceptions unknown to them,
and in fact scarcely possible. A man can trust only himself. He
would never believe that his partner if really left to himself would
act honestly, or give him his true share of the profits; consequently
almost every business is owned by one man, at most by two or
more brothers. How this fetters the development of trade, how
impossible it makes undertakings on any large scale, you can
readily imagine."— T/ie East and the West, April, 1903, p. 129.
84 NOTES
NOTE C (p. 48).
The use of ncffrsueiv in the N. T.
(1) Ttiffzeuetv followed by ort means to believe that the fact
stated is true. e.g. ore ffh el o ^ptffvd^, 6 olu^ rod Oeou,
6 eig rov xofTfiov ipyo[xBvn<$. John xi. 27, cx)mp. xx. 31.
on ^It](7ou<s CLTzidavs xaX dvifftr). 1 Thess. iv, 14.
Stc 6 8ed<s el? iffrt. James ii. 19.
on iffzi^ y.ai ro'ti ix^rjzouffiv aurov fiiffdanodoTTjg
yiverai. Heb. xi. 6.
(2) Tciffzsosiv followed by the dative means to believe a person
or a statement, to accept either as trustworthy.
e.g. ei yap i-tffzeuere Mojoffel iTZCffrsuere av i[xoi^ ei
de Tol^ ixsiwou ypdfifiaffiv oo Trifrrsoere^ tto;? to??
^fiolg pTJfiaffc TtiffTsoffere ; John v. 46, 47.
i7CtffT£U(T£ de \i[ipad[x r<p Osw. James ii. 23, Rom.
iv. 3, Gal. iii. 6 (from Gen. xv. 6) .
Comp. Mark. xvi. 13, 14, 1 John iv. 1.
(3) TztGT£0£iv followed by er? means more than this; it in-
volves self-surrender to him in whom we believe, and so
leads to union with him, and to the consequences that flow
therefrom.
e.g. 6 TtcffTsijwv ££? ifie, xav (XTZoOdvrjy C^Verar xa\ Tra?
o Cttiv xai TZKTTsbiov e:? k[ik oo fiij d-nddvYj ei<^ rov
aidtva. John xi. 25, 26. So very frequently in
St. John's Gospel.
ijfjLs'i? ££? Jiptffrdv ^Irjffoov imffreuffapLSv^ ha dtxatu)-
daJpLsv ix ■Kcffrew? Xptazoo. Gal. ii. 16.
As distinguished from ttkttsusiv el? perhaps Tzitrreuecv ^ttc'
with the accusative suggests the idea of being directed towards
[e.g. Acts ix. 42, xi. 17, xvi. 31, xxii. 19; Rom. iv. 5, 24], and
Tziffreueiv kizi with the dative, resting upon some solid foun-
dation (the Rock) [e.g. 1 Pet. ii. 6, Rom. ix. 33, x. 11 (from Isa.
xxviii. 16), Rom. iv. 18, 1 Tim. i. 16]. The relation in tni is
external, in di internal. — Westcott, Hebrews vi. 2, p. 145.
NOTES 85
Lightfoot says, "The phrase Tztffreustv e/? or irzi rtva is pe-
culiarly Christian. The constructions of theLXX are Trtfjrsuztv
rcvc, rarely -tffrsueiv iizc rr^c or e> tul (and iTzi rtva only in
Wisd. xii. 2). The phrase which occurs in the revised Nicene
and other creeds, mffreusiv eig hxXTjtrca'^^ though an intelligi-
ble, is yet a lax expression, the propriety of which was rightly
disputed by many of the fathers, who maintained that tt^^-
Tsuecv eig should be reserved for belief in God or in Christ."
Gdatians, ii. 16, p. 115.
"With this fulness of faith on a Divine Person (jzLtTreusiv el<s)
must be compared the different partial activities of faith. He who
believes in the revealed Person believes the whole revelation about
Him {Tziffzeoeiv rip ovofxart, 1 John iii. 23), and definite points
in that revelation to be true (-t<TT£ueiv art, 1 John v. 1, 5); and
also believes Him {rudTeberi fioi, John xiv. 11)." — Westcott,
The Historic Faith, Note II, p. 178.
As regards the English translation of Trtffrsuscv si?, the
A.V. varies between "in" and "on," apparently without follow-
ing any principle. See e.g. John ii. 23, "in," ii. 11, "on"; vii. 5,
"in," vii. 31, 38, 39,^48, "on"; Gal. ii. 16, "in," Phil. i. 29, "on."
In 1 John V. 10, the A.V. ignores the preposition, "believeth
not the record."
The R.V. always has "on," except in John xiv. 1, where with
the A.V. it has " m." (Why here only ?)
By the use of "on" for £i^, the R.V. lost the possibility of dis-
tinguishing between ei"? and irrc, which might have been
marked by "in" and "on" respectively, i^^i with the accusa-
tive it always translates "on." The A.V. in Acts ix. 42 has "in."
iTzi with the dative is translated "on" by both A.V. and R.V.,
except in Rom. iv. 18, where both have "in," and in Luke xxiv.
25, where A.V. ignores the preposition ("believe all"), and R.V.
has "on," with "after" in the margin. This last suggestion may
perhaps give the key to both these passages, in neither of which
■niffzeusiv need be understood as governing i~{ and the dative,
86 NOTES
but is used absolutely, the ^7:'iXnt3t and in} Ttdfftv ol? iXdXrjffav
stating the ground or basis of belief.
Mark i. 15 is the only certain case of ntffTsuetv with ^v. John
iii. 15 should probably be translated as in R.V., "in Him" going
with "hath," rather than with "believeth."
TCiffTeuetv with a dative should be translated simply "be-
lieve" (Him). A.V. inserts "on" in John v. 24, viii. 31, 1 John
iii. 23. In this last case R.V. inserts "in."
NOTE D (pp. 6,5<?).
The use of niffrtg m N. T.
"In the New Testament TrcVrre? is found in both its passive
and its active sense. On the one hand it is used for constancy,
trustworthiness, whether of the inunutable purpose of God, Rom.
iii. 3, or of good faith, honesty, uprightness in men, Matt, xxiii. 23.
On the other hand, as 'faith,' 'belief,' it assumes in the teaching
of our Lord, enforced and explained by St. Paul, the foremost
place in the phraseology of Christian doctrine. From this latter
sense are derived all those shades of meaning by which it passes
from the abstract to the concrete; from faith, the subjective state,
to the faith, the object of faith, the Gospel and sometimes, it
would appear, the embodiment of faith, the Church (Gal. i. 23,
iii. 22-26, vi. 10)."— Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 157.
For the objective use of ij ttcVtc? as "the faith," the truth com-
municated to and accepted by the Christian Church, see e.g.
Rev. ii. 13, xiv. 12, Jude 3, 20, James, ii. 1, 1 Tim. i. 19, iii. 9,
iv. 6, and commonly in the Pastoral Epistles, Acts, vi. 7, 1 Cor.
xvi. 13, Eph. iv. 13, Phil. i. 27, Col. i. 23.
The use of 7zi(Tri<s followed by its object is more varied than
that of the verb nKTzeoo).
Like 7:t(TT£uw it is followed by ei*? — ^with Oeov or Xpifftov Acts
XX. 21, xxiv. 24, xxvi. 18, Col. ii. 5, 1 Pet. i. 21. For some
reason both R.V. and A.V. translate e;? in the first of these
passages "toward," instead of, as in all the other instances, "in";
5
NOTES 87
and by ini with the accusative in Heb. vi. 1, where both versions
have "toward."
Also by 7r/)09 (rdv 6e6v) 1 Thess. i. 8, where both versions
have "to God-ward."
And by h (Xptffzw), Gal. iii. 26, Eph. i. 15, Col. i. 4, 1 Tim.
iii. 13, 2 Tim. i. 13, iii. 15, and iv r<p aoroo alixari Rom. iii. 25.
In both Gal. iii. 26 and Rom. iii. 25, the R.V. does not regard
the h as following ■n:i(jri<;.
And by a genitive, Ssoo Mark xi. 22, ^l-qcfoo Rom. iii. 22, 26,
Gal. ii. 16, iii. 22, Eph. iii. 12, Phil. iii. 9, too dv6[iaTo<i anrou
Acts iii. 16,r^s' ivepyeta? 0£du, Col. ii. 2, aX-qOeiaq, 2 Thess. ii.
13. In all these cases except the last the R.V. translates "in,"
the A.V. frequently "of." In 2 Thess. ii. 13, both translate
"of," but with the same meaning. The instances of Tzcarti
"Ifjffou may be subjective, the faith which He manifested.
NOTE E (p. 53).
J. S. Mill on Moral Sources of Erroneous Opinions.
The moral sources of erroneous opinions "may be classed under
two general heads: Indifference to the attainment of truth, and
Bias." These moral causes of opinions, though with most per-
sons the most powerful of all, are but remote causes: they act
indirectly through the intellect, as predisposing causes of error.
"Indifference to truth . . . operates by preventing the mind from
collecting the proper evidences, or from applying to them the test
of a legitimate and rigid induction; by which omission it is ex-
posed unprotected to the influence of any species of apparent
evidence which offers itself spontaneously, or which is elicited by
that smaller quantity of trouble which the mind may be willing to
take." Bias makes a man "shrink from the irksome labour of a
rigorous induction, when he has a misgiving that its results may
be disagreeable; and in such examination as he does institute, it
makes him exert that which is in a certain measure voluntary, his
attention, unfairly, giving a larger share of it to the evidence which
seems favourable to the desired conclusion, a smaller to that which
88 NOTES
seems unfavourable." System of Logic, Bk. V, "On Fallacies,"
ch. I, sec. 3. (People's Edition, pp. 482, 483.)
The writer of an article in the Hibbert Journal for October,
1905, on "Inadequate Grounds of Belief" (Dr. J. Ellis McTag-
gart), concludes by asking, "Is there, then, no moral element
involved in belief in religious dogma ? I believe that to acquire
true belief in religious dogma does require moral qualities — in
almost every case — in the searcher. But they are required, not to
show us what the truth is — for that purpose they seem to me as
useless to the philosopher as to the accountant — but to prevent
our turning away from the truth. In the first place, a man will
scarcely arrive at truth in these questions without courage. For
he must seek before he can find, and at the beginning of his search
he cannot tell what he will find. And he will also need — unless
he is most incredibly fortunate — a certain form of faith. He will
need the power to trust the conclusions which his reason has
deliberately adopted, even when circumstances make such a belief
especially difficult or painful." (P. 139.)
NOTE F (p. 64).
Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel.
"The Bible seems to say: God is not a hard master to require
belief, without affording grounds for believing; only follow your
own sense of right, and you will gain from that very obedience to
your Maker, which natural conscience enjoins, a conviction of the
truth and power of that Redeemer whom a supernatural message
has revealed; do but examine your thoughts and doings; do but
attempt what you know to be God's will, and you will most
assuredly be led on into all the truth: you will recognize the force,
meaning, and awful graciousness of the Gospel Creed; you will
bear witness to the truth of one doctrine, by your own past experi-
ence of yourselves ; of another, by seeing that it is suited to your
necessity; of a third, by finding it fulfilled upon your obeying it."
—Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. VIII, p. 120.
NOTES 89
NOTE G (p. 76).
Lecky on Intuitive Moral PERCEPnoN.
The upholders of the theory of intuitive moral conceptions
contend for two propositions: (1) "Thefirst isthat our will is not
moved exclusively by the law of pleasure and pain, but also by the
law of duty, which we feel to be distinct from the former, and to
carry with it the sense of obligation. (2) The second is that the
basis of our conception of duty is an instinctive perception that
among the various feelings, tendencies, and impulses that consti-
tute our emotional being, there are some which are essentially good
and ought to be encouraged, and some which are essentially bad,
and ought to be repressed. They contend that it is a psycho-
logical fact that we are intuitively conscious that our benevolent
affections are superior to our malevolent ones, truth to falsehood,
justice to injustice, gratitude to ingratitude, chastity to sensuality,
and that in all ages and countries the path of virt le has been
toward the higher and not toward the lower feelings." — Lecky 's
History of European Morals, vol. I, p. 102.
Date Due
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